


The Best Revenge Is Living Well

by Chi-chi-chimaera (gestalt1)



Series: Star Wars Fic Collection [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Death Watch (Star Wars), Gen, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Slavery, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, not so much unreliable narrator as oblivious narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29066820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gestalt1/pseuds/Chi-chi-chimaera
Summary: Maul dies on Tatooine and wakes up over 40 years in the past. He quickly seizes the opportunity to change his fate on Naboo, to free himself from his Master, to save his brother, and plot a new revenge against Darth Sidious with the advantages of time and foreknowledge.Learning the meaning of friendship and family is just a bonus.
Relationships: Darth Maul & Kilindi Matako, Darth Maul & Savage Opress, Feral & Darth Maul & Savage Opress
Series: Star Wars Fic Collection [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1031933
Comments: 90
Kudos: 203





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure what the update schedule for this will be like, since I'm still focusing mostly on my other/main fic, New Sith Order, at the moment. 
> 
> Content Warnings this chapter for Maul's abusive childhood, discussion of slavery and Kilindi implying that Maul might have been sexually assualted, not that he picks up on that.

Obi-wan’s arm where it hooked under his shoulders was warm in comparison to the chill of the desert at night. The fiery pain where the lightsaber had carved deeply into his chest was fading as darkness circled the edges of his vision. Maul looked upwards past Obi-wan’s face, worn and aged past his years, towards the stars overhead. The Force was quiet and still, welcoming him. Even the eternal rage of the Dark, the striving fury, had settled. 

“Tell me,” he said, struggling for breath with sundered ribs and sternum, “is it the Chosen One?” He could think of no other reason Kenobi would have exiled himself out here. No other reason the holocrons would have promised Maul that his revenge against Sidious lay on Tatooine. 

“He is,” Obi-wan replied, still propping him up. It was odd. By rights the Jedi should have let his dying body fall to the sands to gasp his last, not offer this… this  _ sympathy _ . Did he not care about everything Maul had taken from him? Was he too weak to know an enemy when he saw one?

No. Kenobi won their battle. He could not be weak. Perhaps it was just that for all Maul’s plots and designs, it was Darth Sidious who destroyed Kenobi’s world in the end. 

“He will avenge us,” Maul said, a stuttering collection of words, and the last of his strength left him. 

With a sigh, Maul let the Force take him. He sank into its depths, the darkness folding softly around him. There was no pain. There was nothing at all. 

\----

Maul’s eyes flickered open, coming awake so suddenly that he gasped for air. His hearts hammered in his chest, though with shock and surprise rather than fear. He was staring up at blank metal, not a sky full of stars. He didn’t hurt anywhere or… no. There was pain, but only a dull ache, so negligible that he hadn’t even noticed it at first. The ache of bruised muscles along his arms and ribs.

Where was he? What was this?

Maul started to sit up, his hands going to his chest still half-expecting to find a chasm of charred flesh, but his body didn’t move the way he expected it to. He was too small, muscles and bones and skin sitting oddly, unfamiliar. He kicked out; a flailing spasm of misfiring nerves and there was no metal, none of the not-quite-right proprioception and feedback he was used to dealing with from his prosthetics. 

Maul fell out of the bed and hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. His breathing came faster and faster. He was dimly aware that this was panic, but he was too stunned and disbelieving to regain his usual control over his emotions. This did not make sense. He was not himself, and yet…

The hands splayed out against the floor were red and black and familiar, but thinner and smaller than they should have been. His thighs flexed as he tried to push himself up, and he almost laughed out loud at the strangeness of having legs, of  _ feeling _ those muscles at work. 

“Maul?” Someone said. There was another body crouching next to him; from the corner of his eye he saw a grey uniform, a knee and a proffered hand with deep blue-black skin and a paler palm. The proportions were child-sized but oddly large compared to himself - but then Maul was also no more than a child just now. 

Maul ignored the offer of help. He might be as uncoordinated as a tooka kitten but he was not weak. He struggled into a sitting position, relishing the sensation of cold, hard ground underneath him, and found himself face to face with a nautolan, a child of perhaps twelve or thirteen. She was… oddly familiar. He knew her from somewhere, though he didn’t know how that could be. He had no idea where he was, how he had come to be here, or why he was in the body of a child. 

He assumed it was  _ his  _ body  _ as _ a child, but even that he was not yet sure of. 

The nautolan blinked, and drew her hand back. She was still down on one knee. He could sense the shape of a question in her mind, the desire to ask why he was acting so strangely as well as an odd…  _ care _ for his well being. She knew him, and the knowledge of her identity hovered on the edge of his awareness. 

“Do you still want to train tonight?” she asked, instead of any of the other questions on the tip of her tongue. 

Maul had no idea what she was talking about. 

“Alright,” she said, her tone calm and accepting despite the regret that Maul could sense. She stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Wait.” It might have been wiser to let her leave so he could have the space to figure this all out on his own, but he found he didn’t want her to go. He pushed himself slowly to his feet, flexing his toes with something akin to wonder. “I… had an odd dream.” 

Curiosity flickered across her face. She rocked back and forth on her feet, waiting for him to continue. Maul studied her, hoping that perhaps her clothing would give him some clue. It looked like a uniform of some kind, or perhaps a jumpsuit. Glancing down, he saw he was wearing identical items. Certainly a uniform then. 

When he didn’t say anything more, the nautolan asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He was unsure what it would be wise to say. If it helped him to understand what was going on that would be one thing, but he doubted this girl had any answers. She didn’t appear to be Force sensitive, or at least, not at all trained in the Force. 

“It’s fine,” Maul said. “Tell me what you wanted to do tonight.”

“Stealth practise,” she replied promptly. 

Maul had been shaped into a master of stealth by Darth Sidious. He had no need to  _ practise _ \- yet that was in a body he was familiar with. He wasn’t sure he was capable of stealth at all in his current state. He might not even be able to walk in a straight line until he got used to this frame. The girl was not suspicious of him yet despite his odd behaviour, but if she saw how physically awkward he was that would change.

“Go without me,” he said. “I am not feeling well.”

Her eyes widened, and she took a step forwards, one hand coming round to grasp his shoulder. Maul raised a hand to bat it away but missed, the movement an uncoordinated jerk. “I’ve seen you train with broken bones before and not say a word. Something must be really wrong. Do you want me to get Trezza?”

Abruptly Maul realised who she was and where they both were. 

This was the Orsis Academy, an elite facility which trained bodyguards, mercenaries and assassins for the galaxy’s rich and corrupt, the place Maul had been sent to for just over six years as a child to be shaped into the creature his Master wanted. She was Kilindi Matako, another student at the school and… 

And with the benefit of hindsight, one of the only people who had ever shown him friendship. Something he’d then returned by killing her - on his Master’s orders, and there had never been any choice or any other way that could have turned out, but that didn’t stop the memory flashing into his mind; her neck breaking under the twisting power of the Force.

It had been quick. Quicker than most of the deaths that night. He’d been able to give her that, at least. 

“Maul?” She was pushing him backwards to sit on the bed. Maul went with her, nausea twisting in his stomach. “Don’t look so… Don’t look like that! I won’t get Trezza, that was only a joke, a bad one. We can fix this together, whatever it is.”

Everything about this situation was impossible. This was his past, before Mandalore, before Lotho Minor, before Naboo. Before he even earned the title of Darth Maul, never realising what a poisoned chalice his Master offered him. He was a scrawny child again. Was any of that real? His past, now his future? Had all of it been nothing more than a dream? Or perhaps this was the dream, reliving moments in time as he died and passed into the Force. 

He pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling the stubby spikes of his horns above. He couldn’t tell Kilindi any of this. If this was real, then his actions had meaning. There would be consequences, and he remembered that anything to do with the Force was forbidden here. His Master…

Darth Sidious was here also. Not distracted with his great game of war, with his Empire, with his new Apprentice. Here. 

Fear filled Maul’s belly with ice-cold lead. 

Would Sidious sense this? Would he somehow know that Maul was no longer that naive, ignorant boy hanging on to his false promises of power? If he discovered that Maul knew the future, could reveal to him the outcome of the great plan, the revenge of the Sith…?

The instinct to run pulled at his limbs, but there was nowhere to go. He had no resources, he had no means of escape…

No. That was not true. Maul had himself and the power of the Dark Side, and that was all he had ever needed. He’d survived certain death, he’d survived his Master discarding him like a broken tool, he’d survived betrayal and capture and all the other dangers of the galaxy. However little he had, he could always build anew from it. He could escape from here, he merely needed to be careful about it. 

Vague plans whirled inside his head. He needed time, to consider his options and to get used to a body both familiar and strange at the same time. If he acted without thinking his Master would certainly be able to track him down, and that was not something he could afford to happen. 

“It’s fine Kilindi,” he told her. “I just need to rest. I’m sure I will be well again by tomorrow.”

The look she gave him was skeptical, but she didn’t press. He remembered that about her. Her overtures of companionship had always been offered with an open hand, easily withdrawn if he pushed it away. In Maul’s experience friendship was an unreliable thing and relationships were transactional more often than not. People allied themselves with those who could do something for them in return, although there was a wide range of goals and motives in the galaxy. Savage wanted to be trained by a Sith, the criminal gangs wanted money and personal gain, Death Watch wanted someone who could deliver their planet back to them and help them keep it…

Whatever it was that Kilindi saw in their potential friendship, she didn’t want it enough to push hard for it. It was strangely comforting. It left Maul feeling that he could reach back without fearing he was being manipulated, or that if it was necessary to break their alliance she would be slighted and angry in response. 

“Okay then,” she said. “We can always train together another night, if you want.”

“Yes, of course.” 

Kalindi slipped out of the door on bare, silent feet. Maul waited until she was long gone before he could relax. 

Why was he here? Was this really the past? Such things should not be possible even through the Force. Maul had never heard of someone managing to travel through time, although there were many stories of Jedi or Sith or other traditions that he did not know. Perhaps he was not the first one to have been caught up in the currents of the Force and deposited at some random moment in their lives. 

It could still be some manner of dream or illusion, but there was no point in acting as though it wasn’t real. He had to assume that it was. 

What did he remember of the Orsis Academy? Maul had never been sure of his own age, and much of his childhood blurred into singular moments of pain and measured cruelty. It had all been designed to make him better and stronger than the Jedi, and for the most part it had. Even then he had fallen at the first true hurdle, when Kenobi struck him down… 

If he regretted his upbringing it was not in its harshness, but that Sidious had still kept so much from him. The true secrets of the Sith were many, arcane arts devised and improved over millennia, yet Maul knew none of them. He did not know even so basic a trick as Force Lightning. All of his training had been aimed at honing his body into a weapon, but he was only ever meant to be a tool. Nothing more. 

Once he’d imagined he might be able to make Darth Sidious proud of him. That idea now was laughable. 

Maul rose from the bed, keeping his arms wide for balance. He began to stretch his arms and legs, small movements becoming larger ones as he concentrated on the feel of his body, the weight of his limbs, the stretch of his muscles, the smooth, dextrous clench and release of fingers and toes. He paced, adapting to the smaller stride. He rolled his head from side to side, testing his inner ear. 

Gradually, his form began to make sense to him. 

Maul had slept already this night and he did not feel at all tired. He had better things to do with his time than rest. As his control over his own body grew he tested it more, with leaps, jumps from the walls that at first frequently ended with him slamming to the floor. The pain and inevitable bruises were nothing to him. He began to use the pain to draw the Dark Side into him before hesitating. 

He did not know if his Master was on the planet right now. He didn’t remember how often Sidious might have left - although looking back he was sure that he hadn’t been spending  _ all  _ of his time on Orsis, not when he had his other identity as a Senator to keep up. The fact remained that Sidious had been here often, continuing Maul’s training in the Force at least so far as it pertained to combat.

Maul had been forbidden to use the Force while he was at the Academy itself. His Master was very in tune to the currents of the Dark. Even miles distant, he might still feel that Maul was disobeying him. 

This was going to be difficult if he couldn’t use the Force. He might be getting used to this child’s body, but it lacked the ingrained muscle memory that Maul was used to relying on in a fight. Its instincts, the paths laid down in its neural tissue, were beginning to come into being, but… it was still  _ not quite right _ . 

Maul realised he might have to stay here longer than he’d thought. The whole point of the Academy was to train him to fight, and it would be much quicker to pick it all up the second time around. He could go through the motions in his classes, and use his own time to work on the more advanced martial forms that were part of lightsaber combat. 

It wasn’t ideal, but Maul knew he would have needed time to come up with an escape plan anyway. This wouldn’t be so bad - at least, not until the first time his Master summoned him. 

He had to leave before that happened. 

\----

Maul wasn’t used to being around so many other people, much less children. The years before his death had been solitary ones as he turned to the Force to seek the means of his revenge, abandoning Crimson Dawn and the Shadow Collective to Qi’ra’s steady hand. There were almost five hundred students scattered through the Academy, ranging in ages from eight to sixteen and from all manner of species including several that had been wiped out entirely under Sidious’ Empire. There were naturally split up into more manageable groups for their classes, and a large proportion were away from the main buildings at any one time running drills or survival training in the wilds of the planet, but even so it left him feeling constantly on edge. 

Maul had survived this place once already. It should not be a challenge to do so again. He focused on his lessons and did his best to pretend that nothing at all had changed. 

Kilindi continued to hover on the periphery, always close by and ready to respond to any show of interest from Maul, but not overpowering in her presence. She was a familiar touchstone and he did not mind having her there. She demanded nothing from him, only offered up opportunities, whether those were to train together or to go down to the sea shore - though Maul was still not particularly fond of swimming - or to simply find other ways of spending their spare time. 

Maul knew he ought to use every moment continuing to train, forcing the memory of the forms of Teras Kasi, Echani, and Bakuuni Hand into his muscles - though practising that last without using the Force was slightly pointless. He shouldn’t let Kilindi drag him along for mere recreation - and yet he was. It was strangely hard to say no. 

In the back of his mind he continued to plan. There was only one way off Orsis, and that was to take a transport or supply ship up to the orbital station and travel on from there. There was enough business coming through the station - and all of it private and underhand in nature - that nobody bothered to ask unwelcome questions. The difficulty was getting there in the first place. Students were not allowed to visit the station without both supervision and a good reason, and Maul had neither. 

There was also the matter of where he would go once he left. The galaxy was a vast and unkind place to those without resources, and even more so to unaccompanied children. Stealing a few credits here and there would be easy enough, but honest pilots would be reluctant to allow a child to book passage. Anyone who  _ did _ agree to such a thing was automatically suspicious. 

Maul had no doubt he could kill anyone who tried to enslave him or harm him for their own entertainment, but he could not afford to leave a trail of the dead for his Master to follow. 

There was only so much time he had to plan. Sidious would summon him eventually, and then the choice of when to make his move would be taken from him. He found himself returning in his mind to the last time he’d escaped the Orsis Academy, although that had not been so much an escape as a botched rescue or perhaps just another of his Master’s plots. Maul still wondered how Mother Talzin had learned of his location. She sold him to Sidious easily enough as a child, and he did not mistake any of her actions later in his life for genuine care. She wanted things from him - but a shared goal was enough to make them allies. 

Could he go to her now? 

The idea curled his lip into a snarl in distaste. It all depended how  _ useful _ he might be to his mother. If he appeared as nothing more than her child, she would pass him back to his Master in return for some future favour - and he was not keen to give her secrets from the future either. Even that might not be enough to buy his safety, if Sidious threatened Dathomir. Maul was only a male, after all. His life would never be worth as much as the least of the Nightsisters.

The only person he’d been able to trust from Dathomir was… his brother. 

The memory of Savage carved into him like a knife. Maul had failed him, and he could not deny it. As the Sith master he should have been able to protect his apprentice, but for all the power he’d built, all the soldiers of Mandalore, all his own training to regain his strength after Lotho Minor, none of it had been enough to defeat Darth Sidious. Savage had died, and Sidious hadn’t even given Maul the mercy of killing him after that. 

But here… here Savage was still alive. 

Maul didn’t know why he hadn’t realised that before this moment. He  _ could _ go to Dathomir, but not to seek help from Mother Talzin. To find Savage. To go back to the way that things had been for those short months before his death, when they had worked together. They made a good team. He would show his brother the power of the Force and the Dark again, and this time they would have so much longer to train and seek out holocrons and secrets and ready themselves to destroy Sidious and all his plans. 

Yes. Maul smiled to himself. Yes, that was what he would do. He still had not found an answer to his destination after that, to the matter of survival in an uncaring galaxy, but this was a place to start.

\----

“Where are you going?”

Maul whirled around from his position in the tall grass at the edge of the landing field and glared. Kilindi returned it with a level look, unbothered by his dismay at being spotted. He  _ shouldn’t _ have been spotted, not unless she’d been following him since leaving the dormitory building. 

“Why are you here?” he hissed. 

“You’re acting strange Maul,” she said. She slipped into the grass to join him, crouching at his side so she could share his viewpoint. “Ever since that night you got hurt and wouldn’t talk about it.”

Maul hesitated over what to tell her. This was his chance to escape from this place, but Kilindi still had a life here. She had goals of her own. There was a reason she was at the Orsis Academy, so there must be something about the experience she wanted. Had she guessed that he was leaving? Did she want to stop him - but there were easier ways. There weren’t guards here, it was a school not a prison, but she could have alerted Master Trezza. Instead she followed him and confronted him. 

Surely she didn’t want to come with him. 

“You’ve been training harder than ever since then,” Kilindi said hesitantly, not looking at him directly, keeping her eyes on the landing field. “Trezza even mentioned it, although I’d already noticed. If someone here was the one who hurt you… Enough to make you want to leave… you could tell him about it.”

There was something strange about the way in which she was talking around the subject that Maul found confusing. Of course people here hurt him because that was part of the training, expected and normal. She didn’t mean the ordinary bruises, cuts, blaster burns or rarer broken bones all of the students picked up in the course of combat lessons. Did she imagine someone here held enough of a grudge to catch him outside of their classes and beat him because it pleased them? Did she think so little of his ability to handle anyone here? Did she think a little pain would be enough to drive him away.

He hadn’t even looked visibly injured that night. He’d only said he was ill. It could have been a stomach bug.

“Even if it was a teacher who did something, you could tell him,” Kilindi said, still glaring at the duracrete as though it had offended her. “Important people pay a lot of money to send us here to be trained, it would be bad for business if we were getting damaged.”

“I am not  _ damaged _ ,” Maul said, offended. 

Her mouth twisted briefly. “No, I’m sorry. That wasn't what I meant to say.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Maul still failed to understand. Clearly he was still physically able and capable, so what other harm could she be talking about? “I  _ am _ leaving,” he told her. “I have no reason to stay here.”

Kilindi dropped the subject of these supposed injuries.“What about your Master? He’ll come after you won’t he? He’s already paid for the full eight years.”

“Yes.” She didn’t know his Master’s true identity, indeed she knew nothing more than what Trezza did. They saw only the rich, powerful but essentially harmless man he was pretending to be. “Still, I am going.”

Frustration creased Kilindi’s face. She visibly searched for something to say, an argument to keep him here. She might point out his lack of credits, of resources at all, the difficulty of travelling, of finding the kind of work they were trained for at the age of twelve. She must know he had considered all these things already. 

“Fine,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”

Again Maul was deeply confused. “Why?”

“You can’t go out there alone. You need someone to watch your back.”

He would  _ have _ someone to watch his back, as soon as he reached Dathomir. Although… Savage would be a child in truth, with none of the training of a Nightbrother or a Sith warrior. Maul would be the one looking after him. What if he failed just as badly this time around?

“Trezza won’t forgive you for leaving,” he said. 

“Neither will  _ your _ Master,” Kilindi replied. “I’m only here because there’s nowhere else to be.”

Maul frowned. He remembered that differently, but it had been so long. “You aren’t here preparing for revenge?” 

“I killed my owners already, remember,” Kilindi said, with a little snort of amusement. “What would  _ more _ revenge even look like? I wasn’t planning on travelling around starting slave uprisings after I graduate.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “I still owe Master Trezza for getting me off Orvax before any slavers could catch me. I imagined I would take contracts for bounties or assassinations until I paid him back and then… then I don’t know.”

“Coming with me won’t be easy,” Maul warned her. 

Again, she smiled. “I didn’t imagine it would be. Nothing’s easy for people like us. Easier with two than one, though.”

Maul bit his lip. “We won’t stay two for long,” he said. “I’m… I have a brother.”

Her dark eyes went wide. “Is that what this is about then?” she asked. “You said you had a dream - was it about him? Is he in trouble?”

“Why would a dream be evidence of anything,” Maul asked her with suspicion. She wasn’t meant to know that he was Force sensitive, but Trezza knew. Had he said something to her? By the flush across her cheeks, perhaps he had. 

“I overheard Trezza talking to your Master,” she said. “I know…”

“It’s not…” Maul said, turning away. “My brother is fine now. He won’t be forever.”

“We’ll attract more attention as a group,” Kilindi said, thinking. “But there’s safety in numbers too.”

Overhead the clouds parted as the supply ship came in towards the landing ground. There was no more time for discussion. “If you want to escape this place, I won’t stop you,” he said. “I still think it’s a poor choice.”

“I’m coming.”

They watched the shuttle land. Droids emerged to unload the hold, stacking the crates neatly. There would be plenty of space inside when they were done, but less cover than was ideal. Maul was not concerned. He was trained for this, as was Kilindi. 

Carefully, silent as smoke, they slipped inside the shuttle and waited for it to lift off towards the orbital station.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maul and Kilindi continue their escape and find an unexpected ally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to aim to update this fic Thursdays - we shall see how that goes.
> 
> Content warnings for slavery, and explosive slave chips.

The crew of the supply shuttle only made a cursory check of the hold before closing it up and preparing for take-off. Maul and Kilindi sheltered in the shadow of a support strut as the pilot’s gaze passed over them, and mere minutes later the deck shuddered underneath them as the ship took off. It was a matter of minutes to travel up to Orsis Station, though docking took almost as long again. Maul cocked his head as he followed the sound of footsteps from outside. 

As he’d expected, the shuttle was not being reloaded immediately. He waited for about half an hour to give the crew sufficient time to have left before he moved again. 

“So what’s your plan now?” Kilinid asked, hovering close behind him. Her expression was interested and curious, with no sign of worry. 

Maul hit the manual door release. The loading ramp opened with a hiss of hydraulics, and he stood poised to react in case someone outside heard it and came to investigate. The dock beyond was still and quiet. He sensed nothing in the Force, aside from the background hum of sentients living and moving throughout the station as a whole. 

“Now we need to find suitable transport onwards,” he said. “Different clothing is also a priority.” They were both still wearing the Orsis Academy uniform, and while that wouldn’t raise eyebrows amongst the transient population of the station it would if they ran into someone who worked here long term, or who was associated with the school. Maul didn’t think it was likely they would find anything to wear that was intended for a child, but something sized for a small species would serve just as well. 

Kilindi nodded. “So we stay stealthy for now,” she said, and looked around the docking bay. She pointed half-way up one wall, where a ventilation shaft came out. It was covered by a grate, but it looked large enough for them both. “There?” 

Using the ventilation system to travel unseen was a popular technique, one certainly covered at the Academy. It was a simple fact that any large building or starship needed to maintain good airflow for the health and safety of its residents, which meant that there was a minimum limit on the size of their ventilation systems. It might be a security risk, but it was also one which was frequently managed by alarms and other security measures, things they’d also been trained to get around. 

Orsis Station was on the smaller side for an orbital, and that shaft wouldn’t have been large enough for most full grown adults. In this, their age was an advantage. 

“I shall boost you up,” he told Kilidni. He had no need to hide his use of the Force anymore, and they were far enough away from the estate his Master had purchased on the planet that he did not think he would be able to sense it. He raised a hand and pulled the grate free of its mooring, bringing it down slowly to the floor. 

Kilindi watched with wide eyes. “That’s going to come in useful.”

Maul put his back to the wall and made a cup out of his hands. Kilindi came forwards at a run, leaping and planting her foot neatly - Maul thrust upwards with the Force augmenting his own strength. Kilindi grabbed the rim of the shaft and pulled herself up into it neatly. 

“Can you get up on your own?” she asked, her voice filtering down with a slight echo. 

“I can,” Maul called up in reply. “Give me room.” He waited a few seconds, backing up to give himself space to run. One Force leap later, he too slithered into the tight confines of the ventilation shaft. It was clean of dust or the leavings of vermin, which meant there was a dedicated cleaning droid which regularly swept the system. They would have to hope they didn’t run into it. 

Kilindi led the way, though Maul was able to guide them towards the feel of people in the Force. Before long they heard the chatter of voices from beneath them. Kilindi stopped over another grating, bracing against the wall and ceiling of the shaft so that Maul could wriggle up next to her as quietly as possible. They waited and listened. 

The conversation was in Huttese, but they had both been taught that language at Orsis. Maul’s opportunities to use it had been less frequent in the years before his death, but the smugglers below were not talking about anything particularly complicated. He peered down through the narrow slits of the grate. He saw rodians, humans, and a twi’lek. Nothing they could use. He shook his head, and slid back down the shaft so they could move freely again.

They continued on. 

Eventually they found a grate that opened out above the refresher of a bar; a good place to observe a variety of species coming and going. Maul loosened the grate slightly, so that they could pull it up and drop down quickly when the time came, then they settled in to wait. 

Some while later, a chadra-fan wandered in, obviously heavily intoxicated. He headed towards one of the stalls, stumbling and half-falling against one wall. Maul exchanged a glance with Kilindi and they both nodded. Quiet as tooka they dropped down to the ground, landing softly. Even if they’d made some noise it was arguable whether the chadra-fan would have noticed. They waited until he finished his business and came out of the stall wiping his hands on his trousers. 

Disgusting, Maul thought with a sneer, and made his move. 

He grabbed the man from behind, putting him in a chokehold and keeping him that way for long moments of struggling while Kilindi held down his flailing arms. Soon he went slack between them, unconscious. Maul lowered him to the floor and began stripping him. Thankfully he was wearing multiple layers.

Maul pulled off the chadra-fan’s shirt and swapped it out for his own, then passed over the jacket for Kilindi to wear buttoned over her uniform top. Their trousers were bland enough not to stand out even though they were part of the Academy uniform so they didn’t need to take those, but Maul still patted down the chadra-fan’s pockets and was rewarded with a handful of credit chips. He gave half of them to Kilindi. It wasn’t much, but it was helpful all the same. 

Unless they wanted to kill this man, he would start coming around before long. Killing him would draw too much attention - as it was this would appear to be a simple mugging. The chadra-fan might even believe he’d passed out of his own accord from his state of intoxication. 

Maul gave Kilindi a boost back up into the ventilation shaft then joined her. Now they needed to find a ship.

\----

“What about that one?” Kilindi whispered, pointing at a freighter which had recently landed in the main transport hub. They were still in the vents, having managed to find the shaft that fed this large hangar. Since it needed to provide airflow to a bigger space the vent was larger as well, enough that they could crouch side by side behind the grating. A sterile, chilly breeze blew from behind them, covering any noise they might make. 

Maul studied the ship. It was small and fast, but old and scraped here and there with cosmetic damage. A smuggler’s vessel most likely. The pilot was Corellian, or at least he wore their bloodstripes. He was arguing with the dockmaster while another human male unloaded several boxes from the hold. Maul could see only a small amount of cargo inside the ship, and the hold itself was not large. That suggested high value, low volume merchandise. It could be weapons and if so, blasters or grenades by the size of the boxes. Equally it could be medicine, or mind-altering drugs. The rich and powerful who frequented Orsis demanded access to all the amenities.

“It might do,” Maul replied. “Minimal crew. Easy to eliminate. If the cargo is valuable it will provide us enough credits to live on for some time.”

Kilindi’s eyes narrowed. She was looking more closely at the second man. His back was to them and Maul’s view was partly obscured by the bars of the vent cover, but he could see that the human was bare from the waist up. He had short, tight-curled hair, dark skin, and a stocky, muscular form which bore many old scars from combat - a surprising number considering he looked young. Maul was familiar with the marks left by blasters and vibroblades. The man went about his work without speaking or acknowledging the pilot, hefting the boxes with easy strength. He _would_ be the more dangerous opponent, although Maul was not discounting the Corellian’s potential skill with the blaster pistols holstered at his waist. Maul would have the advantage of speed and the Force, so he was not overly concerned.

“He’s a slave,” Kilindi said. She was tense, her hands clenched into fists against the floor. “Look; he’s wearing a collar, and I think I saw a brand.”

Maul looked again. She was right - the dull metal band at the human’s throat could have been some manner of jewellery; he’d paid it no mind initially. The collar was slim and close-fitting. Both shock collars and explosive collars were usually larger, so perhaps it was no more than a mark of ownership, just like the shiny raised circle half-visible at the base of his spine. 

He understood where Kilindi was going with this. “He might help us if we free him,” he said. 

“We take this ship,” she said, determined. It was clear that she’d made up her mind, and Maul agreed with her. There were many advantages about this particular vessel, and the risk was minimal. If the slave made trouble, or was ungrateful for their rescue, he would be dealt with. 

Maul waited for a lull in the traffic around the docking bay then freed the cover from the vent. Kilindi hung down from the lip of the shaft then dropped to the floor. Maul followed, using the Force to cushion his landing automatically before remembering once again that he no longer needed to be wary of the metal of his prosthetics clanging against the deck. There were plenty of crates, tibanna canisters and bits of machinery to use as cover as they made their way towards the small freighter. 

“I can’t believe you’re charging me this much for fuel,” the Corellian was saying, still arguing with the dockmaster. “It’s gotta be twenty percent more than the last time I came through here.”

“The charges are for the full package,” the twi’lek replied, with an edge to her voice. “It’s standard for all visiting ships. A basic tune-up, navicomp defrag, overnight rooms on the station, full meals included - for you and your man both.”

The Corellian sneered. “I don’t need all that poodoo. I’ve got a slave to do maintenance, why would I pay for something twice over? Take it off, fuel only. I’m not even gonna sleep here.”

The twi’lek shrugged, and inputted something into her datapad. “Done.”

“Maybe I’ll take this place off my route, if you’re gonna pull that shavit.” 

“We don’t have that big of a market for spice here,” she said. “There’s plenty of other suppliers we could buy from.”

The Corellian bared his teeth but grudgingly pressed his fingerprint to her proffered datapad and whirled towards his ship. “Finish up and let’s get out of here,” he said to the other man, disappearing inside.

Maul frowned. They wouldn’t have much time to sneak on board now, or to talk to the slave alone and get him to agree to their plan. Still, they hadn’t spotted any other vessels in the bay which made as good a target as this one. He padded forward on silent feet, hoping to circle around and slip inside the hold without the man noticing. Then he caught sight of the human’s face and stopped dead in his tracks. Kilindi almost collided with him. 

“What is it?” she whispered.

Maul knew that face, even under the rough beard the man wore. It was the face beneath every helmet during the Clone War, the face of his Master’s future army. This man was the template, the original. He didn’t know the human’s name or how he had been chosen, or even _when_ he’d been selected, but if he’d ever given the matter a moment’s thought he would have not have expected him to have been a slave.

What was he doing here? This could not be coincidence. It was the will of the Force. 

“Nothing,” he whispered back to Kilindi, and kept moving. He was sure this ought to change his plans somehow, but he could not see how just yet. He needed to think.

They made it inside the hold just as the human finished stacking the last box and turned to hit the control to close the hatch, ducking under it as it slid shut. He looked around the hold, failed to see them in their new hiding place, and hissed through his teeth throwing a look of disgust towards the cockpit. Tension running through his shoulders, he stomped towards the door. Kilindi started to move forward but Maul snapped out a hand to hold her back. 

She gave him a questioning look and he shook his head. Once the man left, he said quietly, “Once we’re in hyperspace.” If things came to a fight and they hadn’t even left the station, either of the humans could alert the local authorities and then they would be in serious trouble. 

She understood at once and settled back with a nod. 

It didn’t mean waiting for much longer. Soon enough Maul felt the brief sensation of pressure and weightlessness that marked transition to hyperspace, and he stood from behind the cover of the crates and headed for the door, reaching out with the Force. He hadn’t decided what to do about the template yet. His first instinct was to kill him, but he doubted there was only one person in the galaxy suitable to use as stock for an army. Sidious would find another, and it would barely be an inconvenience. 

Perhaps he could warn the template, although it was difficult to imagine what argument would hold any weight. He knew nothing about this man. He did not know what manner of person he was, his likes and dislikes, his goals in life. Well. He knew one. All slaves desired freedom. 

By being here at all, by planning to free this man, Maul was already changing things. Was that the scope of the opportunity the Force was giving him, or was there more?

As quietly as possible he opened the door and peered out into the corridor beyond. They were at one end of a hallway; the open hatch to the cockpit was at the other. He could see the back of the Corellian’s head and shoulders as the man sat with his feet up on the dash. Several other doors led off left and right. Only one was open, and the sound of a person moving around emerged from within. Maul pointed it out to Kilindi, who acknowledged him with a nod. 

Moving slowly and carefully, they headed for that door. 

The slave had his back to them again. This room was the galley - he was retrieving bowls and eating utensils from the cupboards and dishing out some kind of nutrient slop for himself and his master. Maul and Kilindi came inside and Maul hit the button to close the door. At the sound, the tension in the man’s shoulders rose even higher. He turned, starting to say, “Food’s almost ready…” before he realised that they were not the Corellian. 

His eyes went wide. “ _Osik_!” He swore at no more than a whisper. “What are you two idiot kids doing here? You picked a bad ship to stow away on.”

Maul was surprised at the curse he’d used. It was Mandalorian - but perhaps he’d just picked it up somewhere. There were certainly many Mandalorians working as mercenaries or bounty hunters in the less civilised parts of the galaxy. “You and the pilot are the only people on board. It seems like a good choice of ship to me,” he said.

“Let me guess,” the man said, folding his arms over his chest. “You two are runaways of some kind. Right?”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Maul said, narrowing his eyes at the implied insult. It was tempting to tell the man they had been trained at the Orsis Academy, but that might not mean anything to the slave. Even if it did, it was wiser not to give too much about themselves away. 

“Sure you can.” The man sighed, unhappily. “Kids like you _always_ think you can,” he said, mostly to himself. “Look. Crev Colton works for the Pykes. You know who they are? They’re criminals - slavers and spice-dealers. We’re heading back to dock with home base right now; a light cruiser named the _Good Trip_. How long do you think you can stay hidden once we arrive? They'll find you and then you two will both get collars locked round your necks.”

That was inconvenient news. “We don’t intend for this Colton to still be alive when we leave hyperspace,” Maul said, baring his teeth. 

“That’s why we came to find you first,” Kilindi added. “We’ll free you, and then we’ll kill your master together.” Her smile was equally vicious. Her pleasure at the thought of killing slavers stabbed out into the Force. The Dark moved in response, interested and hungry. 

The man looked frustrated. “Bloodthirsty little _striils_ aren’t you? If it was that easy, I’d have done it myself.”

Maul did not know much about the methods used to keep slaves in line. They were not people he’d thought about much in the past. The galaxy was base and corrupt at its heart and everywhere within it those with power oppressed those without. This was simply the natural order of things. Those who had strength would use it to break their chains, like Kilindi had. Those who didn’t… Maul had never cared to get involved. 

Breaking the chains of his own fate was hard enough.

“The transmitter for your tracking chip has to be on board,” Kilindi said. “Or we could cut it out if you know where they put it.”

He shook his head. “It’s in too deep. Colton has a transmitter, but it’s on a timer. Once that runs out, the explosives trigger - and it can only be reset back on board the _Good Trip_. These slavers are smart about their work.”

That was unfortunate, but Maul could kill this Corellian by himself. He didn’t need the slave’s help. He had no intention of letting them be captured by slavers, so it appeared the slave would simply have to die too. “Very well,” he said. “We’re still taking this ship. If you stand in our way, we will kill you.”

The man looked him up and down with deep skepticism. “Bold words, _adiik_. I don’t want to hurt you. Go hide in the hold - maybe you can stay there until Colton heads out again on another delivery run. That’s your best chance of survival.”

“Maul!” Kilindi said. “There must be something we can do to help.”

If there was, Maul didn’t see it. The slave turned to pick up the bowls of food behind him. “Stay here,” he ordered. “Colton’s going to come looking if I don’t bring him this.”

“And give you a chance to tell him about us?” Maul snarled. “I think not!”

“I’m not some _hut’uun_ that would betray a couple of children,” the man replied. He was angry but it was carefully controlled. Maul sensed he was telling the truth. He stood aside and let the slave open the door. 

Once he’d left, Kilindi turned to Maul with her jaw set in stubborn determination. “We are _not_ killing him.”

“He isn't going to help us,” Maul replied. “Not if we cannot help him. He will die if we take him with us anyway, when this bomb you speak of is activated.”

“Can’t you do _anything_ about that? You… you have the Force, don’t you?” 

Maul thought about that. Perhaps she was right. He had been trained in the Sith art of mechu-deru by his Master, though in the years since losing his legs on Naboo he had used it primarily to increase the sensitivity and responsiveness of his prosthetics. This embedded chip was inorganic in nature, so there was no reason he wouldn’t be able to sense it and affect it. 

“Yes,” he said. “There is something I can try, when he returns.”

While they waited, Kilindi rifled through the drawers in the galley and found two high-protein ration bars. Maul had eaten at the evening meal back at the Academy and there were still hours to go before his usual breakfast, but it was wise to keep their strength up. He tore into the tasteless bar, finding he _was_ hungry. 

The slave took his time about returning, but Maul felt no warning of danger from the Force. He still tensed when the door hissed open again, ready to fight if they had been betrayed. The man stepped in and threw the two empty bowls into the sonic cleaner. He filled a cup with cold water and took a long drink. “There’s about an hour before we revert to realspace,” he said. “Grab some food and water and I’ll help you find a place to hide again.”

Kilindi gave Maul a look. Slightly grudgingly he said, “There might still be something I can do.”

“It’s just the way it is _adiik_ ,” the man said, with a weary shrug. Again he fell into the use of a Mando’a term without thinking. It provoked Maul’s curiosity. During the Clone War his focus had been on Kenobi, on building his own power base, on working out his Master’s plan. He’d given little thought to the clones as individual beings, mere tools that they were. Had their template been Mandalorian, once? If so he’d passed little of that on to the clones, as far as Maul knew.

“Where is this chip?” he asked. 

The man tapped his flank. “Down near my liver, I think,” he said. There was a faint scar there, barely noticeable in comparison to some of the others. “Why?”

Maul didn’t want to admit he could use the Force, but there was no other way to explain. “I have powers,” he said, talking around it as though he was untrained. It was possible for sensitives to work out some small tricks themselves without anyone showing them the way, and he didn’t want to raise suspicion about who his teacher might have been. “I may be able to feel it and thus, break it.”

The slave’s eyes narrowed. “Powers… The Force? Are you _jetii_ , _adiik_?”

Maul bristled. “No,” he said. “Never.”

The man was still wary. “I know _my_ reasons for disliking the _jetii_. What are yours?”

The slave felt a lot more strongly about Jedi than mere dislike. Hate was burrowed deep in his heart, gnawing out a hole there. Why? Maul supposed it was a motive, at least. Sidious must have promised this man that the clones would be his revenge against the Jedi. That made it less likely he could cut through the tangled webs of his Master’s plots by convincing him not to become the template. 

“Why should I tell you my reasons?” he said. “I don’t know you. I have no reason to trust you.”

The man nodded. “Fair enough. What are you going to do, exactly?”

“Break the chip,” Maul replied. He raised a hand towards the man’s side. “I will need to touch you.”

The slave didn’t like that, but he had no choice. He let Maul come closer and brush his fingers over the small scar there. Maul closed his eyes and reached within, looking for something that did not belong. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d worked with something at such a small scale but after a while he found it. A small piece of metal nestled next to an explosive charge. Tiny really, it would trigger with little more force than a blaster bolt, but that was all that was needed from within a body.

Now he had to deactivate it. This was harder. Maul concentrated, feeling the burn of his frustration and feeding that back into the Force. Electricity was not the pulse of living things, but all matter was of the Force. At the lowest level there was not such a great difference between the impulses inside nerves and neurons, and those in a circuit board. Jedi could not manipulate those energies, or perhaps in their cowardly way they shied away from doing so with the excuse of morality, but the Sith had learned these secrets. 

It was almost ironic that Darth Sidious had taught him this, but nothing of its sibling art Sith Alchemy. Had his Master seen an image of the future? Had he known how much of Maul would be metal rather than flesh? 

This was not the time to wonder about such things. Maul’s mental grasp slipped off the little chip several times before he finally got hold of it and crushed it into scrap. He opened his eyes, swaying slightly. It had used more energy than he expected. 

“It is done,” he said. 

“You’re asking me to trust that you’re not just lying,” the man said, although his tone wasn’t suspicious. “So if we’re going to be trusting each other, we should know each other’s names. I’m Jango Fett.” 

“Kilindi,” Kilindi said, “Kilindi Matako.”

Maul said nothing. Kilindi had used his name already. Jango raised an eyebrow. “What about you _adiik_?”

“You heard my name.” 

“No clan name? No family name?”

Savage had one, but Maul could not lay claim to it. That had been from their father he assumed, a Nightbrother long dead, a man he’d never met. He shook his head. 

“Alright,” Jango said. “Guess I’ll kill this _hutuun_ slaver then.”

“We’ll help,” Kilindi said, before Maul could. Jango waved them back. 

“This is my kill,” he said, with a predator's smile. “Once I’m done, we’ll talk more about what comes next.”

Maul would have preferred to do his own killing, but he couldn’t deny the man’s right to this particular death. Besides, he was trying to recall if he’d ever heard the name Jango Fett before. There had been a Mandalorian bounty hunter with the same Clan name during the Empire, but he could not be sure how closely they were connected. 

Kilindi followed Fett into the corridor. Maul leaned against the door frame, and they both watched Fett stalk up to the Corellian. 

It took the man some time to die, but that was because Fett was having fun. Maul approved. Perhaps they could work with this Jango Fett a while longer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the help of their new ally, Maul and Kilindi make for Dathomir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes on Mando'a:
> 
>  _adiik_ : a child between 3-13  
>  _adiikla_ plural of the above (not canon, but from one of the Mando'a discord language groups)  
>  _beskar'gam_ : iron-skin, beskar-skin, amour  
>  _buir_ : parent  
>  _goran_ : armourer  
>  _jetii/dar'jetii_ : Jedi/Sith (lit. dark Jedi)  
>  _Haat Mando'ade_ : True Mandalorians  
>  _hut'uun_ : coward  
>  _ka'ra_ : the stars  
>  _kyr'tsad_ : Death Watch  
>  _verd'ika_ : little warrior  
>  _vode_ : siblings, comrades  
>  _Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a bal Mand'alor_ : The Resol'nare (Six Actions), the Mandalorian creed; Education and armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language and our leader

Maul and Kilindi waited in the cockpit while Fett washed the blood off his hands and chest in the fresher. They’d stripped the dead Corellian of all his belongings before dragging the body to the airlock and spacing it. There was no point in having a corpse rotting on board their new ship. 

“So,” Fett said, coming out with the slave-collar nowhere to be seen and wearing a shirt that fit too tightly across the shoulders to be his own. “You two came here with a plan. What was it?”

"Maul's plan mostly," Kilindi said, spinning around in the co-pilot's chair to face him. "We needed a ship, and this one looked like a good target."

"You haven't been on the run long," Fett said, leaning against the wall. “I can tell.” Maul was not fooled by his appearance of relaxation. Violence came easily to a man like this, like pushing a button or flicking a switch. He could be a useful ally, and it would be easier to move around the galaxy with an adult in tow than as unaccompanied children, but Maul was still wary. 

"I'm not going to ask what you're running from or exactly where you came from," Fett continued, with a dismissive shrug of one shoulder. "Trust has to be earned, I understand that. My question is about whether you're heading _towards_ something."

"And you wish to help us get there?" Maul asked. What were the motives here? Did this man care simply because they were children? Out of the goodness of his heart? He didn't seem prone to such Jedi weaknesses.

"I'm not keen on helping _adiikla_ get themselves into even more trouble than they're in already," Fett said. "You need somewhere safe to go, somewhere you won't be found by anyone chasing you. That's not easy in this galaxy. I don't know how much help I can be, but I couldn't forgive myself if I just dropped you off somewhere to fend for yourselves."

"The ship is _ours_ ," Maul replied, irritably. " _You_ are not taking it anywhere."

"You know how to fly it?" Once again he doubted their capabilities.

Kilindi nodded. "We both know how to pilot," she said. "Though I do think it makes more sense to stick together."

"Before we tell you anything we need to know more about you," Maul said. He was itching to get on with his plan, to drop them out of hyperspace and set a new course for Dathomir, but he refused to put his brother at risk from Fett. He had to know the shape of the man so he could predict him, use the levers of his goals to get them pointed in the same direction. "Were you born a slave?"

Anger flared behind the man's eyes, a wave of tension that passed through his body before he forced himself to relax. "No. This is..." His jaw clenched. Maul sensed hate writhe under his skin like a beast, familiar and understandable. This was a man in dire need of revenge. "It's been just over a year."

"I was born a slave," Kilindi said. Maul gave her a startled look, not expecting her to be so honest. It had already been common knowledge at Orsis Academy so she hadn't had the luxury of hiding it, but he would have imagined she might want a fresh start now. She didn't see his expression, too focused on Fett. Maul didn't recognise the feelings on her face nor how she felt in the Force, and that was unsettling. "Eventually, I killed the family who bought me." It was a good memory, Maul could tell. "They never expected it from me. They thought I wasn't a threat. I waited until they were asleep in their beds and then I cut their throats one by one."

Fett let out a shuddering breath, not quite a gasp of surprise but something else. Pain? It had better not be sympathy. Maul wouldn't have wanted his _pity_ , and Kilindi deserved better than that. Her freedom was bought in blood, as were all things worth having.

"Well done, _verd'ika._ " Not pity. "You deserve to hurt those who have harmed you."

"You've been trained to fight, haven't you?" Kilindi said. "How did the slavers get you?"

Fett looked down, his eyes far away. "I walked my _vode_ into a trap," he said. "When it was over, I was too injured to fight them off when those _hut'uun kyr'tsad_ took me prisoner. They sold me on. That's who _I_ plan to kill, now I'm free." _Kyr'tsad_. Maul did not quite succeed in hiding his reaction, but Fett was too caught up in his own thoughts and painful memories to notice. Death Watch. His former allies. What quarrel did Fett have with them? 

"You were a New Mandalorian?" he asked quietly. 

Fett frowned. "A pacifist? Of course not. I'm not sure what would make you think that, _adiik_."

"Is that not the faction Death Watch is fighting in your civil war?" Maul asked. Saxon and Rook had both complained often about Clan Kryze and the New Mandalorians, eager to explain the reasons they could not be permitted to rule Mandalore any longer. Some part of Maul had agreed. The New Mandalorians seemed to preach the same weakness as the Jedi. It was obvious that they had brought their people to the brink of ruin - it would not have been so easy to take the planet out from underneath them otherwise. He did not recall them mentioning any other group standing in Death Watch's way.

Fett's eyes closed briefly. Pain moved over his face, bright and intense as a man impaled with a lightsaber - and Maul spoke from experience there on both sides of the equation. "They're all that's left now," he said. "I hoped some of the _Haat Mando'ade_ survived, but..." He trailed off. The wall at his shoulder now seemed as though it was the only thing holding him up. Maul looked away. This raw emotion was uncomfortable, and he didn't know what to do with it.

After a moment, Fett mastered himself. "What do you two know about Mandalore's affairs anyway?" he asked. 

Kilindi glanced at Maul, then shrugged. "Not much," she said. "The... people teaching us thought it was important for us to know about current galactic conflicts."

That had made him curious - Maul could see Fett wanted to ask more, yet he held his tongue. He was offering up his past to get two children to trust him, which meant there was some reason for it. 

_Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a bal Mand'alor;_ the creed Saxon had done his best to explain to him after he won the Darksaber from Pre Viszla. Children were the lifeblood of the clan, and although Death Watch were wary of outsiders like Maul and Savage, they would take them far more eagerly in the form of war orphans. 

Was Fett intending to adopt them? If the rest of his clan was gone... that made a sense that Maul could understand. He wasn’t sure he was _pleased_ about it, but it was something he could use, a hook to lead Fett where he wanted. 

"Death Watch aren't the only group you hate," Maul said, still probing for more. "You spoke of the Jedi too. Is that simply because you are Mandalorian, or have they also done something worthy of revenge?"

Fett bared his teeth. Once again rage and agony warred in his heart. "They were the teeth of _kyr'tsad's_ trap."

Interesting. 

"Look, I owe you two kids for freeing me," Fett said. "Consider me helping you as paying back that debt, if you can't trust me any other way."

“We need to go to Dathomir,” Maul said, making his decision. “My brother is there.”

Fett relaxed slightly in relief. “He can take you in?”

“No, we need to bring him with us,” Maul said, quick to dispel _that_ misconception. “It is not safe for him to remain there.” 

Fett frowned. “Why not?” 

It was a question both easy and difficult to answer. Before Savage found him on Lotho Minor, Maul had known nothing about his planet of origin and very little about those who dwelled there. He’d encountered Nightsisters once on Orsis, his mother trying to collect him because she thought his Master had thrown him away - she was too early on that front, Maul thought bitterly. Sidious had explained their coven to him later. Maul had not thought of them again until waking on a stone slab in their village on Dathomir, until he began travelling with Savage and his brother told him in broken, hesitant snippets what they had done to him.

Maul could have tried to pass on that knowledge and explain the intricacies of life for the Nightbrothers. It was simpler to say only, “Because he is no better than a slave.”

“Who will we have to kill to get him out of there?” Fett asked. 

“That will depend on our stealth. It would be better if he simply disappeared.”

“Avoid drawing any heat.” Fett nodded his approval. “Fine. Let’s head for Dathomir.”

\----

Dathomir was half-way across the galaxy from Orsis. Even in a fast ship with a good hyperdrive, it made for a long journey. The autopilot didn’t need them to hover over it while they were in hyperspace, so Fett suggested they all get some sleep. Maul agreed it was wise. There was only one bedroom, which Fett was happy to give to him and Kilindi. The door locked from the inside. The Mandalorian had a thin sleeping mat of his own which he took through to the hold, leaving them alone. 

“What do you think about him?” Kilindi asked. The bunk was wide enough for them to both lie side by side. As a zabrak, Maul ran hot compared to Kilindi, so he shoved the blanket at her and she wound it around herself. Conditions aboard spaceships and stations were generally less humid than the surface of planets like Orsis, which could be a problem for a nautolan. They would have to do something about that at some point. 

“I don’t like him,” Maul said. 

“You don’t like anyone,” Kilindi replied. There wasn’t any judgement in her tone. She put her back against the wall, leaving plenty of room between them. Maul wanted to ask her to move closer, but that didn’t make any sense. He said nothing. 

“He’s a Mandalorian warrior,” she continued thoughtfully. “That’s important. We used to have a Mandalorian trainer at the Academy. He left to fight in their civil war, but he was very skilled.” Maul remembered him, though not fondly. Meltch Krakko had tried to get him killed. Maul had repaid the favour, but it wasn't a memory he could take any satisfaction from, not when it had been in the same massacre that he killed Kilindi.

“All Mandalorian warriors are," he said. "He will be… useful.”

“After we get your brother, what do you want to do?”

Maul didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t thought that far ahead. 

“We could all work together,” Kilindi said, thinking the idea over in her own mind. “Jango could find us contracts and then we could fulfil them as a team.”

“He still wants his own revenge. He’ll get tired of helping us eventually.” Unless he adopted them, but he would make a poor _buir_ right now, as Maul understood the Mandalorian sensibilities about such things. He wore no _beskar’gam_ , perhaps because his own had been taken from him. With that he’d lost his culture and his sense of honour, assuming he was a man who cared about such things. He must care about them if he was looking to claim war orphans. Not that they _were_ war orphans, but to a desperate man it would not matter. 

“We could help him with his revenge too.”

That… was a possibility. It would mean working against Death Watch, and Maul found he was reluctant to do that. He owed them no loyalty - the warriors who fought by his side would be children themselves right now - and yet they had saved him and his brother when they were drifting in space near death. Gar Saxon and Rook Kast had even risked their own lives to rescue him from Count Dooku. Death Watch had a harsh code that was not unlike that of the Sith. Even if some of them had betrayed that code and refused to follow him after his duel with Vizsla, most had stayed and served him gladly even to the very end. 

Yes that had been because they believed he would help them keep hold of Mandalore, but unlike his other allies in the criminal syndicates they would not have gone behind his back to betray him. If they wanted him dead, he would have been challenged in open combat. Knowing that had been… reassuring. 

Maul could not forget the opportunities returning to the past had given him. This was his chance to enact his revenge on Kenobi and on his Master. He should be looking for every weapon he might be able to use against them. If he made Fett an ally and he was still chosen as the template for the clones, then he could be used against Sidious. However the same was true of Death Watch, if he could make them bow before him a second time. 

All he needed to do for _that_ was to make a challenge for the Darksaber again. Did Pre Viszla still have it? Maul was unsure how old he had been when he killed him, but he judged he would be a young man now. The hard part would be tracking him down. Perhaps Fett could help with that as well. He would need to find Death Watch to get his revenge, and then Maul, Kilindi and Savage could all slip away and forge themselves a place on the winning side. 

Fett was one man, after all. He could not hope to defeat all of Death Watch. 

That might not be his plan. Perhaps _he_ wished to claim the Darksaber - if so, then Maul's target would change but not his overall plan. 

He had been silent for a long time, but Kilindi simply watched him with a patient gaze. 

"We will work alongside him for now," Maul told her. 

She nodded, and said, "I have a good feeling about this."

\----

Several jumps later, the small freighter arrived in the Dathomir system and began its approach towards the ochre-brown globe of the system's one inhabitable planet. From Maul's incomplete recollection the Nightsisters did not care for technology, instead relying on their magics and deep connection to Dathomir itself to warn them of approaching threats. Maul was unsure if they would have sensed him coming. He meant them no harm, at least not directly, but he was Mother Talzin's child. It was reasonable to assume he would be more obvious and apparent to her than another Force sensitive would have been. 

Fett had insisted on piloting, but Maul took the co-pilot's seat next to him both as back-up and to give directions. His memory of the location of the Nightbrothers' village was dim, and he was reluctant to draw too much on the Force in case Talzin sensed it, but he could at least keep them well away from the Nightsisters. Their stronghold was more familiar. 

"You've got no idea where we're going, do you?" Fett said, after a while where Maul merely pointed in whichever direction felt right to him. It had not been a successful technique. 

"I have never been to the Nightbrothers' village," Maul was forced to admit. 

"But you know your brother's there."

"I... saw him in a dream," Maul said, taking refuge once again in the vagueness of Force powers. He doubted Fett knew enough about the Force to tell what was reasonable for an untrained Force sensitive to be capable of. "It was a true dream. I am certain of it."

"Someone's going to notice us eventually," Fett told him. "Flying around half the planet like this is too obvious."

"Dathomir's native fauna are too dangerous to search on foot."

Fett sighed. "This damn ship couldn't have lifeform scanners," he muttered under his breath. "Fine. But if someone hails us, you'd better come up with a good lie."

Hailing them was unlikely. If the Nightsisters noticed them they would prepare a trap instead - but Maul knew what to watch for. He would not be taken in by their tricks. If he'd been properly armed he would not have feared them at all, but everything in the armoury at Orsis was chipped and tracked. The chadra-fan they robbed had no weapons, and Fett had claimed the Corellian's blasters. Maul was trained to use blades, blunt instruments, blasters, and slugthrowers of all kinds, but he would have preferred a lightsaber above all else. That would not be easy to find. The Jedi and similar Force sects guarded their kyber crystal sources greedily - the best way would be to kill a Jedi and bleed their crystal, but first he needed to find one. 

A goal for another time.

Fett wove them in a search pattern over the swamps below. Eventually Maul saw the shapes of buildings appear over the horizon, clustered in the foothills of cragged mountains that were all sharp peaks and deep canyons. He pointed it out, and Fett headed wordlessly in that direction. He set them down some distance away so that they could approach in the hope of remaining unseen. 

The air outside was cool but damp, fog rising from the swamp all around them. Kilindi smiled, the tentacles draped over her shoulders twitching slightly. This was a much more appropriate environment for her species. 

They trekked through calf-deep water and wet mud towards the more solid ground that surrounded the village. The cover of the trees was replaced by rough and rocky terrain, but this too gave them plenty of places to hide. Maul did not imagine Fett had the same degree of training in stealth that he and Kilindi did, but he managed to keep up without making too much noise or being seen by the guards ringing the edge of the settlement. Finally they crouched a few hundred meters from the palisade wall, watching the back and forth rhythms of its inhabitants. 

It felt strange to see so many other zabraks with his manner of markings. Their base colouration tended towards ochres, yellows and oranges, but the black tattoos were all the same stark shade standing out against their skin. Each was different, and Maul presumed they had some meaning. He had never been told it himself. 

He did not see any Nightbrothers the same deep red as his own. Was there some significance in that?

“Any sign of your brother?” Fett asked, leaning against a rock. His hands hovered over his blasters.

Maul shook his head. He believed he would know Savage when he saw him, but there was a slight flicker of doubt at the back of his mind. His brother had been changed by the Nightsister’s magics, and although some of that had faded from his body as he died Maul didn’t know how much. What if he did not recognise him? 

Surely the Force would tell him - and right now he sensed no trace of the Nightsisters nearby. They were far away in their own domain half-way around Dathomir. Even if Mother Talzin felt his presence now, she would not be able to do anything about it. He reached out for Savage. 

“He’s not in the village,” he said softly, his eyes half-closed as he concentrated. “He’s down by the river.”

“How do you know that?” Fett asked. 

“I can sense it.”

The man frowned. “The Force?”

Maul nodded. He gestured for the others to follow him and started to move, keen to avoid further questions. This was not a topic he wished to get into with Fett, at least not yet. 

Fett apparently did not intend to allow him that choice. “Has anyone ever trained you _adiik_?”

Maul did not look back at him. “I already told you I’m no Jedi.”

“There are more users of the Force out there than just _jetii_ ,” Fett replied. 

The Mandalorians and the Sith had worked together in the past, long ago when both peoples had empires. That he and Savage were Sith warriors had spoken in their favour to Death Watch, rather than against them. That didn’t mean it was a good idea to tell Fett that he was _dar’jetii_ , not when he would meet Darth Sidious one day in the future and possibly put two and two together. 

Into the silence Kilindi asked, “Do Mandalorians use the Force? I’ve never heard that they do, but sensitives must be born on Mandalore and its colonies like they’re born everywhere else.”

Fett was surprised by the question, but he still answered it. “We have those touched by the _ka’ra_ , yes. Many don’t do anything special with it, it simply gives them an edge on the battlefield. For those who need more, they train as _goran_. Their skill helps us bind our souls to our armour.”

Maul frowned. He had heard Saxon and Rook talk that way but he assumed they spoke in metaphor. He’d not realised it as a truly religious belief. He knew what Fett meant by the _ka’ra_ \- the spirits of great Mandalorians long dead resided in the stars, watching, challenging and guiding their people. Theology was not something he’d discussed with his soldiers, but he understood they felt the Force to be in some way analogous to the _ka’ra_ ; made from the souls of dead Jedi and dead Sith, perhaps. 

They were close to the river now. Maul could hear the noise of splashing water and the faint sound of… singing? 

Savage had never sung. Not around him. 

Maul motioned for the others to keep low and keep back, and crept towards the sound. He rounded a rock to see a zabrak boy with his back to him, scrubbing clothing in a tub filled with river water. For a moment he could not put this slender teen and the wall of muscle his brother had been together into one image. The boy shifted, turning enough so that Maul got a side-on view of his face, and there was Savage. There was his brother with the same markings, the same sharp cheek-bones, the same arrangement on his horns that matched Maul’s own. 

Maul hearts twisted inside his chest. The pain was sharp and sudden, the same agony of loss and grief that had taken him when Sidious thrust his blade through his brother’s heart. When he’d been too late and too slow to stop him. He must have made some noise, or emotion made him less careful where he put his feet. Savage turned around, merely curious at first but turning to surprise in an instant. He dropped the bundle of cloth he was holding and scooped up a wicked knife from next to his feet, coming smoothly up from kneeling into a crouch. 

“Who are you?” he demanded. 

Maul opened his mouth to speak, but he could not. Savage snarled, wary and suspicious. 

“I know every Nightbrother in the village, and you are not one of them. Where are you from? Why have you come here?” As his eyes raked over Maul his instinctive reaction began to settle slightly, becoming a more simply confusion. “You’re only a child.”

“I am not a child,” Maul said, snapping out of this… whatever it was. 

“You’re not old enough to be of use to a Nightsister,” Savage said. “That makes you still a child.”

Was that really how they measured such things here? 

“Well I…" All clever words had escaped him. "I’m your brother.”

Savage's eyes widened. The hand holding the knife fell back to his side. "You are the one who was taken."

Maul had not truly imagined how this meeting would go. He had only a confused memory of the first time he met Savage, images and impressions that blurred without clarity. Savage already knew of him then, but Mother Talzin was the one to tell him and set his feet on the path to finding Maul. He assumed Savage did not even know he had a brother until that point. "You know me?" he asked.

"I remember you," Savage said, something fierce behind his words. "Just a little. You were tiny, but I was still permitted to hold you. I looked after you for a few weeks before the Nightsisters came back for you. I thought you were dead all these years."

Maul made a small noise in the back of his throat. He seemed to be rooted in place, his body failing to respond to any of his commands. He hadn't thought of his brother's age in relation to his own, but it was easier to measure that here, with both of them still young. Savage looked like a teenager, fifteen or sixteen. Four or five when Maul was given to Sidious? All this time Savage had known that he had family even if he thought Maul had been some kind of sacrifice to the Nightsister's darkest magics, and Maul had known nothing at all. 

Savage moved forward slowly, tossing the knife into the dirt. He reached out and put a hand on Maul's shoulder. The contact was warm and heavy and Maul did not know how it made him feel. "I might not know your face but I can read your markings. Your horns are the same as mine. I know you are my brother." Maul's breath caught in his throat. He did not know what to say. "What happened? Savage asked. "What did they do with you?"

Maul wetted his lips and managed to speak. "That is a long story."

"It must be." Savage seemed to come to some kind of realisation, for he looked away and began to scan their surroundings with a suspicious gaze. "Did you escape from the Nightsisters?" he asked. "Are they after you?"

"I have escaped, but not from them," Maul said. "Savage, you must come with me. I have allies, a ship. We need to leave Dathomir."

"A ship..." Hope flared in his brother's eyes. "You trust your allies?"

Kilindi much more than Fett, although trust could only ever go so far. "I trust them enough," he said. "They will not betray us to the Nightsisters."

Savage nodded firmly. "Then we shall leave immediately," he said. "I will fetch Feral from the village..."

Maul frowned. "Feral?" The name was unfamiliar. His brother had never spoken of friends or intimate partners amongst the other Nightbrothers, before he was chosen by Ventress. Yet who else would he want to bring with him?

"Our younger brother," Savage explained. 

"Younger... brother?" Maul whispered. This made no sense. After Savage broke free from Ventress' control, he would have gone back for any family they had on Dathomir, or at least tried. His search for Maul might have been a search for a teacher, but family _did_ mean something to him, or so he claimed. Had he abandoned Feral here because he had no abilities with the Force? Or... by then, was he already dead?

"You did not know of him," Savage said. "Yet you knew of me?"

"A dream," Maul said, using the same excuse. "A vision."

"We cannot leave Feral here."

"No... I was merely surprised."

Savage nodded. "I'll tell him I need his help with the laundry. No-one will question it."

"Be quick. The sisters might have seen our ship."

Savage darted away, up the winding path to the village. Maul sat down on a nearby rock. His head was spinning. A second brother? What were they like? He could not even imagine it. How much younger were they? 

He was desperately curious to meet them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mildly awkward family bonding, and planning for the future.

“So I guess you actually have two brothers,” Kilindi said, somewhere behind him. Maul was broken from his shock at the sound of her voice. He turned to frown at her, irritated that she had not respected his privacy. She only shrugged in response. “I came close enough to listen. Just in case something went wrong.”

“I do not need your assistance,” he said, turning back around and staring at the rushing waters of the river. 

“He seemed nice,” Kilindi said, sitting down on a rock just at the edge of his field of vision. 

“You saw him for only a moment. It would be an error to judge so soon.” The words came automatically, with little thought behind them. Maul picked at the fabric of his trousers, filled with an uncharacteristic restlessness. His stomach was tight, clenching in on itself. This was something like fear, the kind he felt cowering before Darth Sidious many times anticipating punishment, but there was no reason to be afraid now. 

He was getting what he wanted. Savage would leave Dathomir with him and would no longer suffer at the hands of Ventress. It was just this unexpected other brother he hadn’t been able to plan for. 

Kilindi said nothing more. They sat in silence together, with only the noise of the water and the singing wind in their ears. Maul’s senses, highly tuned, caught the sound of footfalls first. Two sets, approaching at a light jog. He stood, scanning the path up which Savage had disappeared. 

His brother rounded the corner and came into view. Another zabrak was following him, his skin beneath the tattoos almost an identical shade of yellow-ochre. He was about ten years old, Maul thought, his horns still stubby in the way of pre-pubescence. Their arrangement was different to that of Maul and Savage. A different father? 

Half-brother or full brother, it did not matter. He was still kin. 

“Feral,” Savage said, motioning from the younger boy to Maul. “This is our brother.” He hesitated, looking to where Kilindi sat leaning back on the rock, her legs folded beneath her. “Who is your friend?”

“This is Kilindi,” Maul said, gesturing to her. “We… were training together.”

“Warrior training?” Feral asked, his eyes wide. He had a backpack on his shoulders, stuffed full. Savage had one similarly laden. Good. Anything they brought with them was something they would not have to find out in space. All resources were valuable just now.

Maul nodded in answer to Feral’s question. This was not the time to explain his past, but calling it that was accurate enough. 

“Nice to meet you Kilindi,” Feral said, smiling. “I’ve never seen anyone who looked like you before.”

“Not even in a holo?” Kilindi asked. 

Feral shook his head. “We don’t have holos here. Sorry.”

Savage set his jaw in a way Maul knew meant he was embarrassed and unwilling to admit to it. Maul had been dimly aware that the Nightbrothers’ village was a primitive place, but he had never seen it. He’d never asked  _ how  _ primitive. What must it have been like, for Savage to be changed by magic and sent out into the galaxy to find a world full of strange technology? Or had such knowledge been gifted to him before he left Dathomir by those same Dark arts?

“We can talk on board our ship,” Maul said. “It would be unwise to stay here any longer.”

“Will we be coming back?” Feral asked, glancing back towards the village. 

“No.” Savage put a hand on the boy’s head, between his horns, rubbing slightly in a light caress. Maul’s own scalp ached in a strange sympathy. He wasn’t sure why.

“But… what about our friends?” Feral’s eyes glistened with dampness. The waves of his childish emotion could be felt in the Force - Maul was unsettled by it. Friends? Did Feral not understand the opportunity he was being given? Did he not see that escaping Dathomir was worth leaving others behind - for surely they would make the same choice to abandon them if it meant freedom? This sorrow was weakness, and unworthy of any who were his kin. 

“Perhaps we can come back for them someday,” Savage said. It was a promise vague enough to be meaningless, but it quieted Feral down. 

“Come,” Maul said. “My other ally will be growing impatient.”

"Brother... where have you been for all this time?" Savage asked, following him as he turned and started to make his way downhill towards the swamps and the treeline. 

"Far away," Maul replied. He would tell them more later, once they had privacy. 

Fett was waiting within earshot, well-hidden amongst the stony terrain. Savage and Feral both stopped in their tracks when they saw him and Fett raised his hands well away from the blasters at his hips. "You two ready to get out of here?" he asked. He must have overheard their conversation, because he didn't look surprised to see two new zabraks rather than one. 

Savage growled quietly, but it was wariness rather than true fear or anger. It was wise to be cautious. Maul approved. "Who are you, human?" he demanded.

"My name is Jango Fett. I’m no-one of importance." That had the feeling of a lie. Curious. Maul doubted Fett was aware of his  _ true  _ importance in the plans of the Sith, so what importance did he believe himself to have? 

Savage nodded. No doubt he had many questions about Maul, Kilindi and Fett, but he also must know that the answers might mean nothing to him. His experience of the galaxy was limited to this planet and whatever tales were passed down from Nightbrother to Nightbrother. Legends of the outside worlds. 

He would learn quickly when given the opportunity. He had before.

They trekked back to the freighter without encountering any opposition. Maul's small use of the Force seemed to have gone unnoticed by Mother Talzin, and the men of the village did not seem to suspect anything either. Maul kept his mind open for any flicker of danger in the Dark. There were still the predators of the swamp to contend with, though he could sense them easily and lead their party away from them. After the first glimpse of dark hide and a toothed maw lurking just below the surface of the water, Fett did not complain about the detours. Once they had all made it up the loading ramp, Fett made for the pilot's chair and had them in the air within moments. Maul showed Savage and Feral where to stow away their belongings in the main cabin. He had not considered where they would all sleep. They needed more mats like the one Fett had. The next step in the plan would have to be to stock up on supplies.

Kilindi hovered for a moment in the door, and then went up the corridor towards the cockpit to join Fett, leaving Maul alone with his kin. 

"Will you tell us your tale now brother?" Savage asked. In the low light of the cabin their eyes were all glowing faintly. Savage's did not have the same intensity Maul remembered, without the energy of the Dark Side behind it. 

Maul would have to begin his training from scratch. There had been no lessons from Darth Tyrannus this time around, but that did not matter. They had  _ years _ now. Would Savage accept instruction from a brother who looked a mere twelve standard years old? He would be foolish not to see the advantages the power of the Dark Side could give him, once Maul demonstrated what it could do. There was also Feral to consider - Dathomir was a planet that bred Force-sensitives of various strengths. Only the rarest amongst their number did not possess that potential - or so Sidious had led him to believe. Feral would learn too.

Kilindi would make sure Fett was piloting them somewhere sensible. He had time now to speak. 

Maul sat down on the edge of the bunk. "I will tell you," he said. "But I have one question of my own first. Savage, you said you knew me as a child. What was my name then?" 

"Maul," his brother replied, and something about the question had made him upset. "It was Maul. Did they take that from you?"

"No. I am still called Maul." That was interesting in itself. Sidious had not bothered to change his name. He'd wondered, given how well it fit with Savage's, and now with Feral’s too. Sith usually were given new names or took them on by choice when they left their past lives behind. Maul had no life to leave. His earliest memory was of Mustafar, of his Master. 

Savage relaxed slightly. "Good. That is good."

"Mother Talzin took me so she could give me to the Sith." Savage had told him he knew of the Sith even before Ventress claimed him. They were spoken of in tales as beings who could be allies or enemies of the Nightsisters, powerful but untrustworthy. Both Savage and Feral looked alarmed at the name now. 

"What would the Sith want with a babe?" Savage asked.

"To train me."

Feral cocked his head, his confusion obvious. "Like we train as warriors to prove ourselves to the Nightsisters?"

"You will not have to prove yourself to anyone now," Savage told the boy, with a growl of satisfaction. 

"My Master was a man called Darth Sidious," Maul explained. "He trained me to be his assassin, to kill his enemies. He taught me just enough of the Force to be useful, but never enough to prove a threat to him." Maul snarled, unable and not wanting to hold back the wave of hate that filled him when he thought of his Master. "He sent me to a place called the Orsis Academy to learn more. That is where I met Kilindi. I saw an opportunity to be free of Sidious, and so I took it. Kilindi insisted on coming with me."

Savage reached forward - Maul almost interpreted it instinctively as an attack, but stopped himself at the last moment from reacting poorly, with violence. His brother grasped his shoulders and smiled broadly. "You have been brave and clever brother. Escaping from a Sith! It could not have been easy."

Maul found he could not meet the simple pleasure in Savage's expression. Even the warmth of his hands felt strange - he wanted to lean into it. He glanced away. "It  _ was _ easy," he said. "He did not suspect I would dare be disloyal to him."

Savage snorted. "Naturally, if he is anything like the Nightsisters. They believe we are merely simple brutes barely capable of thought, who would only think of disobeying the way a beast would defy a poor trainer. They don't imagine we could want to resist them, could want things other than what they think we should want."

"How do you know that?" Maul asked, barely more than a whisper. He thought Ventress had been the first Nightsister to have come for Savage. He thought he would be too young now to have tasted their cruelty. 

"I listen to the older Nightbrothers," Savage replied, easing his concerns. "They speak to all the young men around my age so that we know what the Nightsisters will expect from us."

“They did not hurt you yet?” It seemed important that Maul should be clear about this point. 

Savage shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “And now thanks to you they never will. We owe you a debt for coming for us brother, but… you said you saw me in a dream? That is how you found us?”

Maul could be more open with them about the Force, but he hesitated at the idea of mentioning this jaunt through time. It would be easy to disbelieve him; his words would sound impossible, the imaginings of a disordered mind. “The Force,” he said. “It showed me you, Savage, but nothing of Feral.”

“The same power that gives the Nightsisters their magics?” Feral asked. 

“The Force is a source of many powers, and many different traditions have learned to make use of it,” Maul replied. “The Sith are one such tradition, the Nightsisters another.” 

“And the Jedi,” Savage said, the words a low growl. 

“What do you know of the Jedi?” Maul asked. 

Savage shrugged. “Little. Only that the elders warned us all to be on the lookout for their kind, if any dared to come to Dathomir. It is said they fear and hate the Nightsisters and their power, and would seek to draw the poison in their fangs by stealing promising children from our village.”

Interesting. It did not sound like the Jedi, who were too afraid of their own emotions to allow themselves the strength of such things as fear and hate, but he could imagine some roaming Jedi coming to Dathomir by happenstance and leaving with a child. Mother Talzin had already proved with Sidious that she preferred to buy peace with flesh than offer a challenge, at least when it came to the males. He did not know if she would be equally uncaring with a female. 

But this was mere speculation. It may never have happened at all, only a story to prevent the Nightbrothers speaking to any Jedi about how their females treated them. Not that Jedi cared for anything outside their precious Republic no matter what ideals they claimed to believe in.

“Have you ever seen one?” Feral asked. 

“I have,” Maul said with a sneer. “They are indeed cowards, unwilling to reach their full potential in the Force. They do train as warriors, but they are no match for the Sith.”

“Is that what your Master was training you for?” Savage asked. “To fight Jedi.”

“To  _ kill _ Jedi. Their Order almost succeeded in wiping out the Sith centuries ago, because of their numbers and because the Sith were distracted fighting amongst themselves. I was intended as an instrument of revenge - or that is what my Master told me.”

“You doubt that now?” Savage was surprisingly insightful. Maul wasn’t sure if it was an instinctive usage of the Force, or merely his natural perception. 

“I think that  _ tools  _ are disposable.” 

Savage nodded agreement. “It sounds like you are much better rid of him.”

“He will be looking for me,” Maul warned. “We are going to have to be careful.”

“The Nightsisters will not be best pleased to discover the two of us missing either.”

“They might just think we got lost in the swamp,” Feral suggested. “Or that a predator got us both.”

“With no sign of a struggle or a trace of blood?” Savage said. “Well. It is possible.”

“The Nightsisters will not be anything to worry about,” Maul told them. “Not after I have trained you to use the Force and to fight as I have been taught.”

“You want us to learn the ways of the Sith?” Savage asked. 

“The ways of the Dark Side of the Force,” Maul corrected him. “The  _ stronger  _ aspect of the Force. The Sith are hardly the only ones with a claim to that power. Eventually we three will be powerful enough that we will have nothing to fear from anyone - not the Nightsisters, not the Sith, and not the Jedi. I have… some plans.”

Savage and Feral traded glances. “That sounds good,” Feral said quietly. “Not having to be afraid of anyone sounds very good.” 

“What of your friends?” Savage asked. “Are they able to use the Force too?”

“ _ Kilindi _ is my friend. Not Fett. He is just… useful, for now. And no, neither of them can use the Force.” Not that he was aware of. The ability to touch the Force was a wide spectrum of sensitivity, and many beings in the galaxy were capable of sensing the Force even if they could not manipulate it. 

“Kilindi was at this Academy you spoke of - but not Fett?”

“He was a slave,” Maul said. “We freed him. He owes us a debt for that - and he is Mandalorian.” Neither of them recognised that name, he could tell, so they did not realise the importance of younglings to that people. “I will speak more of them later, but for now it means that we can trust him to an extent.”

“And he is… human,” Savage said, not enthusiastic about the idea. 

“The galaxy is full of them.”

“It is so strange to have left Dathomir,” Savage said. “There is so much for us to learn.”

“It’s exciting,” Feral added. “Though… we shouldn’t be leaving everyone else behind. Maybe once you’ve trained us to use the Force we can go back and help them? So they don’t have to be afraid of the Nightsisters anymore either?”

“Perhaps,” Maul said. By the time the three of them had that kind of power, he was sure that Feral would have forgotten all about the home he’d risen so far above. They would have other matters more deserving of their attention. 

“You are confident we  _ can _ learn to use the Force,” Savage said. 

Maul spared a moment of attention to feel out in the Force towards Fett and Kilindi. They were both still in the cockpit. “We have a little time,” he said. “I can show you how to start sensing it now.”

\----

After giving Savage and Feral a lesson in the basics of meditation and reaching out to the Force, Maul left them to practise and went through to check in with Fett. He was unsure exactly how far this promise of assistance was going to take them, and he imagined that Fett might have other plans and goals of his own. The need for revenge Maul sensed burning inside of him would have to be answered sooner or later. 

“They settling in okay?” Fett said, turning in his seat as Maul approached.

Maul nodded. “What is our current destination?” he asked. 

“Dathomir isn’t on any major hyperspace routes,” Fett replied. “We were spoiled for choice, but… we’re pretty close to the Mandalore sector.”

“You’re taking us to your home?” Maul asked, narrowing his eyes. Was Fett intending to abandon them after all? Would he break his word so easily? He supposed if so it was no great loss; they had the ship and its cargo, which would keep them in supplies for a while before they had to find another way to make credits. Savage wasn’t an adult, but he would serve well enough as the outward face of their group. 

“Not yet,” Fett said. “We’re headed to Banomeer first; it’s en-route. Thought we’d shift the spice there and pick up some supplies, talk about things before jumping in headlong.”

Maul nodded. He supposed that was acceptable. He had some knowledge of the black market economy from his training at Orsis; criminal syndicates were common employers of the assassins, mercenaries, bodyguards and bounty hunters that the Academy turned out. He knew the common merchandise that the gangs dealt in, the rough patterns of commerce and the markets for said merchandise. There was more of a demand for a recreational drug like spice on a mining world like Bandomeer - manual workers would pay to drown out the misery of their lives for a while. Mandalorians - at least the ones he knew from Death Watch - preferred combat drugs and similar stimulants if they indulged at all. 

Maul had some vague memory that Bandomeer also had a market for slaves. There should be no reason for anyone to suspect that Fett was a recently freed slave, but he wondered if it would be a problem somehow. His knowledge of the slave trade was all figures and credit-totals, without the level of detail that might have come in useful several times already. 

“Are you from Mandalore itself?” Kilindi asked. “Or one of the colonies?”

“Concord Dawn,” Fett replied. “Although it’s been… a while since I was there last.”

“You know people there?”

“A few,” Fett said, looking down at the controls. His thumb rubbed the edge of the panel thoughtfully. “Not sure what’s happened since Galidraan. Not sure if they’ll be happy to see me or not, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

“Does Death Watch have a presence on Concord Dawn?” Maul asked. 

Fett’s expression twisted with frustration. “I have no idea how the fight against  _ kyr’tsad _ is going,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly easy to find out news of the wider galaxy this last year and a half. Without  _ Haat Mando’ade _ … hopefully those kriffing pacificsts from Kalavela have found enough of a spine to put up some fight against them.”

“If we are close to the Mandalore sector, perhaps we will be able to find that information on Bandomeer,” Maul suggested. 

“Perhaps.” Fett checked the console. “We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace soon. Better let your  _ vode _ know.”

\----

Bandomeer had no orbital stations, so they were forced to land at one of the cities to buy what they were looking for. Fett spent some time flicking through files in one of the dead Corellian’s datapads, looking for Pyke Syndicate contacts on the planet. “Got something,” he muttered finally. “We should change the ident for this freighter while we’re here. I’m sure our failure to return to the  _ Good Trip _ has been noticed by now.”

It was a good idea. “Did you have a name in mind?” Maul asked. 

Fett gave him a half-smile. “Thought this was  _ your _ ship,” he said. “You should name it.”

It wasn’t something that Maul much cared about. He gave it a moment’s consideration. “The  _ Promised Revenge _ ,” he suggested. 

“Yours or mine?” Fett asked, with a cautious, assessing look. 

“Either,” Maul said. “Both. It is something we are both seeking, is it not?”

“As you wish.” Fett made a note of it on the datapad. “Wait here while I go and talk to this guy about buying our spice.”

Maul bristled. “I will come with you.” It would be foolish to meet a criminal alone. 

“No you won’t  _ adiik _ . This is dangerous business. You’re too young to be mixed up in this…” He held up a hand to stop Maul before he could think to interrupt. “I know you’re already mixed up in it. But bringing a kid to a spice deal is suspicious on its own. You’re not even armed yet.”

“Yet,” Maul said, taking note of how Fett had worded that. 

The Mandalorian sighed. “Yeah, we’ll pick up some weapons for all of you lot here, so long as you can show me you know how to use them and be safe around them.”

“That will not be a problem.” 

“This shouldn’t take long,” Fett said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

\----

Fett was indeed as good as his word, returning quickly with an arrangement from the Pyke dealer. They would deliver the spice to a different hangar bay nearby, where the buyer would be waiting to transfer them the credits. Fett was fairly certain this wasn’t a trap, and he had some experience in these matters. Maul, Kilindi and Savage helped him load up a pallet with the rest of the crates in the hold, covered it all up with a tarp, and sent him off again - though not alone this time. Maul wasn’t going to bother asking for permission after Fett had denied him before, and he refused to let him wander off unprotected again. He and Kilindi waited a few minutes to open up the space between them intending to follow at a distance. 

“Is this wise brother?” Savage asked him, as he was leaving. 

“Kilindi and I were trained for this,” Maul replied. “Do not be concerned.” That included stealth and unarmed combat - he was more than capable of defending Fett without a weapon if it proved to be necessary.

Savage shook his head but let them go. It was clear that Maul's words had not managed to fully reassure him. Maul should have been annoyed by that lack of trust, but he found it less irritating than he would have expected. There was a warm sensation inside him leaving the hangar bay that was at odds with the weather outside. He shook it off. His attention needed to be on Fett. 

He and Kilindi tracked him without any problems along the edge of the airfield to the named hangar. There were guards outside, but they let Fett though without hostility. Maul pointed to an alley between the two hangars - he and Kilindi scrambled up the exterior wall so that they could watch from up top. There was other security - cameras primarily - but they too were easy to avoid. 

In the end the handover went smoothly. Fett accepted the case of credit chips and headed out again. There were no awkward questions, and no recognition that he was a recently escaped slave. Maul could breathe more easily once it was over with. He nodded to Kilindi, and they made for the ground again. 

Fett whirled on them, startled, when they dropped down next to him. His blaster was out in an instant before he realised who they were. 

“ _ Ossik adiikla _ ,” he snarled. “Do I need to strap bells to the two of you or something?”

“You should be thankful to have the backup,” Maul told him. Fett holstered his blaster again, grumbling under his breath. 

“I don’t need you to be worried about me,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”

“You would still be a slave if not for us,” Maul replied. 

“Still, who’s the adult here? I should be protecting you, not the other way around.”

“We’re just working together,” Kilindi said. “Teamwork is how we stay alive.” Another Academy lesson.

Fett sighed. “Get the others then,” he said, nodded towards their own hangar. “Rations, clothes, weapons, fuel… then we can get out of here.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Domesticity is not as easy as it sounds.

Food rations, water and ship fuel were all easy to acquire on Bandomeer. Maul instructed Fett to purchase the high protein versions of the ration bars, since zabraks were a primarily meat-eating species. Nautolans were the same, although neither of them were obligate carnivores. Appropriate clothing was also relatively easy to purchase; hard-wearing synthleather jackets, cloth undershirts and trousers, underwear, tough boots - all typical fare appropriate to both miners and spacers. Weapons were slightly harder, as there was less need for them in a place like this. 

Asking around, Fett was able to find a place that sold blasters alongside surplus or obsolete mining equipment. It was clearly not what the Mandalorian would have preferred, and Maul understood his feelings. Everything was old and second-hand, dinged and damaged and dirty. Searching the shelves together they managed to find enough working blaster pistols for each of them, along with a pair of rifles and a dozen or so vibroknives of various sizes and functionality. It would do for now. Thus resupplied, they returned to the newly christened _Promised Revenge_ and set a course for Concord Dawn. 

“Were you able to discover any news of the Mandalorian civil war?” Maul asked once they were in the air. It was awkward for them all to cluster in the cockpit, so Kilindi had taken Savage and Feral to familiarise them with the ship's facilities and workings, as well as to try fiddling with the life support settings to increase the humidity to a more comfortable level for her. 

“Some,” Fett replied, unhappy about it. “The New Mandalorians - the pacifists - are actually bothering to fight back now that we’re not around to do it for them.” The bitterness in his voice had the familiar taste of injustice. Maul could sympathise. “Duke Kryze has managed to persuade a number of clans to swear to his House and unite behind him. They’re keeping _kyr’tsad_ at bay for now.”

“And Concord Dawn?”

“ _Kyr’tsad_ show their _buy’ce_ around the major settlements occasionally. We’ll be setting down somewhere further out. Should be safe.”

Maul tried to work out what Fett was aiming to do on his home planet. He had mentioned old friends or allies, yes, but safety was only a place to start from. It was not a goal in and of itself. “Then what?” he asked. 

“Then…” Fett looked slightly hopeless. “Then we work out what we both want, and how to get it.”

“We know that,” Maul said with slight irritation, gesturing to the ship surrounding them. “Revenge.”

“Yes, but what does that look like for you?” Fett replied. “Or for me.”

“My revenge will take some time to bear fruit,” Maul admitted. “Yours, I sense, is more pressing.”

Fett hummed, a thoughtful sound. Once again Maul sensed his suspicion, though the source of it was harder to identify. Perhaps it was that he did not sound like a twelve year old should, but Maul doubted he would guess the correct reason for that. “My armour,” he said after a long moment. “That’s what I need to get back first.”

“Do you know where it is?” 

“No,” Fett said. “That’s the first thing I need to find out. And I need to get back in fighting shape.”

“Allies to track down your armour, and a safe place to train.” Maul nodded. “We need to train as well.”

“Thought you and Kilindi were already very capable,” Fett said, smiling as if it was supposed to be humorous. Maul gave him a flat stare. 

“We are. My brothers are not. _They_ need to train.”

“So we have a plan, at least for the next few weeks,” Fett said. “Let’s take this one step at a time.” 

“Very well.” It appeared they would be remaining with Fett for the foreseeable future. If he could find them this promised safe place, freeing him would be proven worthwhile. Savage and Feral both had a lot to learn.

\----

Concord Dawn was a wild planet as seen descending into its atmosphere, with a landscape of hills and mountains covered in thick jungle, cupping glaciated valleys that opened out into broad plains given over to farmland. Scattered homesteads littered the land here and there, small conglomerations of several buildings at a time with each settlement spaced widely apart from each other. Maul saw only one town that even deserved that name, though it was more of a village. Fett piloted the _Promised Revenge_ towards an area which appeared drier and more barren, though it still had the marks of fields long gone to fallow. They landed near a cluster of farm buildings that seemed to have been abandoned for some time - several windows were boarded over, others were broken, and the door swung open on its hinges. Dust scattered beneath the freighter in a large cloud as they set down. 

Nobody came out to meet them or investigate the ship. Further evidence that it was indeed deserted.

"What is this place?" Maul asked, curious. Had Fett believed an old ally might still live here? 

"My home, once," Fett replied. He swung out of the pilot's chair and headed past Maul down the corridor without looking at him. His head was down and his gaze pointed at the floor. Old pain was leaking out of him, a prickle in Maul's senses. 

Maul followed him to the exit ramp, Kilindi, Savage and Feral appearing out of the kitchen to join them in curiosity. The hatch opened with a hiss, and warm dry air gusted in against their faces. Fett went down the ramp at a fast walk and then stood staring at the farm buildings. 

"What's the matter with him?" Kilindi asked at a whisper.

"He said he once lived here," Maul replied. There was little point in loitering in the ship. If this place had stood abandoned for this long then it was unlikely to be visited by others. It would be safe for now, at least until someone noticed that it was no longer empty. 

"I meant to come back here a few times over the years," Fett said, at the sound of their footsteps in the dirt behind him. "Never quite found the time. Surprised nobody thought to take the place over." His voice was thick with suppressed emotion.

"It will need some work to make it habitable again," Savage noted. Feral was more occupied staring at their surroundings to add any thoughts of his own. 

Fett nodded. His throat moved convulsively for a moment and then he sighed, shaking some of the tension out of his shoulders. "Should make a start," he said. "Focus on the main house for now. We won't need any outbuildings for some time." 

The damage was not that extensive, and little of it appeared to be structural at least to Maul's untrained eye. They circled the outside of the building first, taking stock of what needed to be done. The roof would need some work, and there must be somewhere they could purchase replacement glass for the windows. The walls needed re-coating in paint or plaster or whatever else was used locally. The door appeared to have been kicked in at some point and would need repaired and rehung. The greatest mess was inside. Time had taken its toll on the furnishings, dust and dirt and plant matter had been blown in by the wind, and animals and birds appeared to have used various rooms as their dens. 

All told it was a rough, homely location, but certainly not the worst place Maul had lived in his life. Lotho Minor had been far more unpleasant. 

"Looks like we're still sleeping on the ship for now," Fett said. "We can unload some supplies to make more space for our bedrolls in the hold."

It was a reasonable suggestion. Savage got to work transferring the crates, while Fett managed to find them some old brooms to sweep out the interior of the house while he checked over the furniture to see if any of it was salvageable. Most was too soiled and damaged, and Fett dragged it out to dump inside one of the barns. The manual labour was not particularly onerous, merely dirty. Maul allowed his mind to wander, constructing training schedules for both combat and the Force for his brothers. The latter would be more awkward since he didn’t wish to reveal the full extent of his powers to Fett. 

The rest of the day passed quickly. It seemed little time at all before the sun was sinking below the horizon and the blue shadow of dusk fell over the world. The house was much cleaner inside, although it would need a proper scrubbing to be anything close to respectable. Fett made up meal packets from their supplies while everyone took turns in their one sonic shower, cleaning off the sweat and dust of the afternoon. 

“This is a good place,” Savage said, accepting a steaming bowl of rehydrated soup from Fett. It was still warm enough that they were eating outside rather than the cramped interior of the ship, perched on crates of supplies. “Thank you for bringing us here Jango.” 

“Not a problem,” Fett replied, his tone gruff. “Just… repaying a debt.”

“What was it like, growing up here?” Kilindi asked. 

“Mostly good,” Fett said, with a far-away look in his eyes. “Until it wasn’t anymore.”

“Sorry,” Kilindi said. ““I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I just wanted to get to know you better, if we’re going to be living together now.”

“Fair enough,” Fett said, “but that goes both ways. You kids haven’t told me much about yourselves either.”

Maul hunched over his own bowl and glared. Kilindi could share whatever _she_ wanted, but he would not be doing the same. He didn’t need to know about Fett’s past. He needed to know his present and more about his future than the scraps from his own memories - though that latter wish was impossible. 

Kilindi sat thoughtfully for a moment, her tentacles twitching. “Is there a good story you could tell us? About before things went bad for you?”

Fett considered that for a moment while he ate. Then he put his bowl aside and said, “Let me tell you about the man who adopted me after my parents died. His name was Jaster Mereel…”

\----

The next few days began to take on a certain rhythmic shape. The five of them shared meals and stories and occupied themselves with manual labour in between as the homestead started to take shape around them - or at last everyone bar Maul told stories. There was nothing that he wished to share. It made him feel like an outsider looking in at Savage’s tales of hunting and training on Dathomir, Fett’s reminisces of the _Haat’ade_ , or Kilindi’s memories of the Academy before Maul came there, but he was already an outsider merely by virtue of his knowledge of the future and the true age of his mind inside this child’s body. 

The feeling was a familiar one in any case. He was used to being set apart from others. It was only natural as a leader of Death Watch or of Crimson Dawn.

The chores were easier, and took his mind off such rumination. Maul and Kilindi picked through the barns and outbuildings looking for things that could be broken down into raw materials, collecting wood and metal and cloth and finding some useful tools for carpentry and farming, if they ever got around to growing their own food. Feral located an ancient bottle of some kind of astringent cleaner and began industriously scrubbing the walls, floors and any other surfaces he could reach inside the main building. On the third day Fett took the _Promised Revenge_ on a trip to one of the jungles in the high country about ten miles distance with the aim of getting some wood that wasn’t dried out. He took Savage with him - at fifteen he was the strongest aside from Fett himself. Maul wasn’t happy about it. He did not like the idea of letting them out of his sight. 

“I will be fine, brother,” Savage said, trying to reassure him. “It is merely a gathering trip.”

Maul could not find any reasonable objection, but the discomfort still sat in his stomach for the rest of the day until they returned. Fett came down the ramp dragging a small tree-trunk that must have only just fit inside the hold, and Savage emerged with the carcass of some kind of porcine beast draped over his shoulder.

“Fresh meat!” Feral said, with a happy light in his eyes. 

“Your brother here made the kill,” Fett said to them, slapping Savage on his free shoulder. Savage smiled, half-hidden by a quick duck of his head. 

“It is nothing,” he said. “I hunted often for the village back on Dathomir.”

“Savage is a good hunter,” Feral told them. “All the Elders say so.”

Butchering the creature was easy work, and they took some flavour packets out of the rations to serve as a rub before roasting a rack of ribs in the embers of a fire that night. It was delicious, and sitting in a circle with Fett, Kilindi and his brothers listening to them all talk, Maul felt some of that loneliness inside him ease. He realised that his brothers were looking to him often to see his reaction to their words, and Fett and Kilindi both would turn and ask his opinion on the topic of their conversation. They did not wish to cut him out, or let him sit watching them in silence. They wanted him to be a part of this.

It warmed something inside his stomach that seemed like it would expand and burst out of him. It was an unfamiliar emotion but he thought it must be… happiness. A happiness untainted for now by other concerns. 

Over the next few days they used the new wood to fashion tiles for the roof, battering straight old nails to use to fix them to the gaps where rain could get in. Feral finished cleaning the house, and they set a fire out in a barren patch of cracked dirt to burn the old unsanitary furniture and other junk. 

“The smoke may alert others to our presence,” Maul warned Fett, though he was sure the man was aware of that. 

“They’ll find out eventually,” the man replied. “But I doubt anyone living round here will tell _kyr’tsad_ about us.”

If Fett had lived here as a child, he must know their neighbours, their characters and allegiances. He had not reached out to them yet, but given his previous talk of allies it was only a matter of time. 

Maul did not protest any further. Concord Dawn was a frontier planet, recently colonised in the scope of galactic history. It was not particularly rich, and was notable only because it had been settled by Mandalorians. It was hardly the first place his Master would look for him, nor where the Nightsisters would look for two disappeared Nightbrothers. If the locals knew about them, it did not alter their safety. 

His Master _might_ look on Dathomir though. The recent vanishing of Maul’s kin would be too suspicious to be coincidence. That was something to keep in mind, though there was nothing to be done about it now. 

Finally everything was done on the homestead that could be done with their current resources. There were only two final issues to be solved before they could start to live in the house rather than basing themselves out of the freighter, and that was the windows and plaster for the walls. 

“Time to head into town at last,” Fett said. “Do you _adiikla_ fancy a field trip?”

“Yes please,” Feral said. 

“If you think it wise,” Maul replied. “Will your face be known there? This was your home once, and you spoke before of potential allies.”

Fett nodded. “I left Concord Dawn pretty young,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I won’t be recognised anyway. I was going to ask around, drop some names, see if it stirred anything up.”

“Perhaps it would be better for us if it is believed you have returned to your old homestead alone,” Maul suggested. “There would be questions about where we came from.”

“Aww,” Feral said, seeing the agreement in Fett’s face. “A human village sounded interesting.”

“There will be time to visit human villages later,” Savage said. “Maul is right. Safety comes first.”

“There’s going to have to be questions at some point,” Fett told them. “If we’re going to be living on Concord Dawn for any length of time you all need to get vaccinated.”

“Zabrak immune systems are surely more than a match for whatever local diseases you have here,” Maul said dismissively. 

Fett shook his head. “I’m not leaving that to chance,” he said. “The plagues here are deadly to humans. Your species aren’t _that_ different.”

“A discrete medic then?” Maul suggested. “One that could come out here.”

“I’ll see if that’s possible,” Fett said. “Anyway, I doubt I’ll be back before sunset.” 

“We’ll have dinner waiting,” Kilindi told him cheerfully. 

Fett’s absence would provide Maul with a certain opportunity. As the _Promised Revenge_ took off and soared away in the direction of the hills and the valleys between them, he turned to Feral and Savage. “We should use this time to practise your command of the Force.”

“You haven’t spoken of the Force since the flight from Dathomir,” Savage said. “You do not wish to discuss it in front of Jango?”

“He does not know about the Sith,” Maul replied. “His experience with the Force thus far has been the Jedi killing his people. I would rather he not know.”

“It does not seem something that could be kept secret forever,” Savage said doubtfully.

“We will not be with Fett forever,” Maul said. 

“But I like him,” Feral replied. He looked to Kilindi for support. “Don’t you like him too Kilindi?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s older than us and for a while he was armed and we weren’t. He could have tried to take the ship and abandoned us somewhere, tried to kill us maybe, even if we _did_ free him. He helped us instead. That makes him trustworthy, in my opinion.”

“Trust is one thing,” Maul said. “Power is another. The Sith… was intending to betray me. He will not like that I have done so first. He will be looking for me. He is very powerful in the Dark Side of the Force, and if we do not gather strength of our own, and allies equally as strong, he will find us and he will kill us all. I have seen it.” They would assume he meant in a vision, but it was not a lie. Sidious was the true hand behind Kilindi’s death, behind Savage’s. Not Feral’s perhaps, but that version of the future did not matter now. 

Savage frowned. “You spoke of the dangers of this Sith before,” he said. “Has something changed? Did your dream tell you that this is urgent?”

“It is not _urgent_ ,” Maul replied. “It is simply important to plan properly for the future.” 

“Why wouldn’t Jango be our ally?” Kilindi asked. “Is there some reason he would side with the Sith?”

“If the Sith offered him revenge against the Jedi.” Maul was sure that was how it had happened before, the motivation behind becoming the clone template. 

Kilindi was an optimist but she understood how the world worked. She knew allegiance was something to be bought and sold for the right price. Sometimes that price was high, but it always existed. She looked away, uncertain. “That doesn’t mean we need to leave him before that even becomes a possibility,” she said. 

“No, we should not act too fast,” Maul agreed. “Fett is still useful for now, and there is no reason anyone should come looking for us on Concord Dawn. We have plenty of time to train.”

Savage folded his arms over his chest. He did not look happy. “And how long do you mean for that to last? How many months or years before we abandon someone who has been kind to us and invited us into his childhood home?” 

Maul sneered. “All children fly the nest eventually.”

“So he is our father now?” Savage raised an eyebrow. “Following that metaphor.”

“Of course not,” Maul said, feeling his cheeks heat with frustration. “ _You_ were the one suggesting he might become attached to us - and there _is_ some reason to be concerned, since he is Mandalorian.”

“Why does that matter?” Feral asked. “Anyway, _I_ wouldn’t mind if he was our dad.”

“We do not _need_ a parent,” Maul said. He reminded himself that Feral was a child, and even if life on Dathomir was hard it was still sheltered in some ways compared to the more realistic upbringing Maul and Kilindi had experienced. It was natural for Feral to want such things and he did not have the experience to know that such desires were only weakness. “That is why you must learn of the Force, and the arts of combat that Kilindi and I have been taught. We all are perfectly capable of defending ourselves with the correct training.”

“Brother,” Savage sighed. “You have not answered my question. How long do you intend to stay here? Where do you imagine we will go, when the time comes? What other allies will we seek out?”

Maul hesitated over how much to tell them, or perhaps more accurately how best to justify it without speaking of his knowledge of the future. “The Mandalorian people are a good place to look for allies,” he said. “They are warriors with experience fighting those who use the Force throughout their history. Finding Fett was fortuitous, in that it brought us to them, but Fett is a lone soldier. His House and Clan were wiped out. We must look elsewhere.”

“To the Kalevalans?” Kilindi asked, wrinkling her nose slightly. “Jango said they’re pacifists. As soon as Death Watch is out of the way they’ll put down their weapons. The Sith would have to be a big threat to them before they would defend us, and from what you’ve said that isn’t true.”

“No.” Maul had not even considered that possibility, and he discarded it immediately for the same reasons Kilindi had given. In the future he knew of, House Kryze won the civil war, but Satine Kryze had not lifted her hand to help Kenobi, her Jedi paramore. She _certainly_ would not help someone like Maul. She cared only for her precious ideals even when they were driving her rule to its downfall. “There is another faction in this war.”

“Death Watch?” Savage snarled. “Jango described them as traitors and cowards! Why would you imagine they would help us at all? Surely they are far more likely to sell us out to this Sith than Jango is.”

Maul scowled. “Fett is hardly an impartial source of information,” he said. “The code of Death Watch is the code of the Mandalorians of old - the warriors who built an Empire! _They_ are the ones who are strong enough to stand beside us.”

Savage was still frowning at him. “Jango said his father Jaster rewrote the code for the _Haat Mando’ade_.” He stumbled slightly over the Mando’a words. “He led those warriors after his father died. I know that most of them were killed, but is there no hope that some might still be out there? If Jango can rebuild his own faction…”

“If that were possible Fett would not be here with _us_ ,” Maul said dismissively. “He would have tried to find them already.”

“Is that not what he intends to do while visiting the town?” Savage asked, gesturing in the direction the _Promised Revenge_ had taken. 

Maul could not say ‘but he did not do so the last time, so it must be impossible’. He could not justify why he knew that. 

“You weren’t planning on going anywhere for months at least, right?” Kilindi told him, her voice soft. “There’s plenty of time to wait and see what happens. We don’t have to make that kind of decision yet.”

She was trying to pacify him and he did not appreciate it. “Time will prove me right,” he said. “You shall see.”

They did not believe him, he could sense it. Not yet. Very well. Let them cling to this scrap of kindness that had been offered - they would realise that it had been no more than an illusion when it was inevitably snatched away from them. There was no use in trying to convince them until they made that realisation for themselves. 

“I am going for a walk,” he told them. Anger and something sharp and hot were prickling in his chest and he wanted to release that energy in the way he had been taught - but that way was violence and death and there was nobody that he wanted to hurt here. He turned and stalked away. 

“Brother…” Savage said, but his conciliatory tone only stoked the fierce heat inside Maul higher. He ignored him entirely. 

The fields on either side of the farm had grown cereal crops at some point. Now they were overgrown with weeds, unwanted and unusable native life. Untended, chaos and wild things thrived. That was the natural state of the world. Maul walked with no particular idea of where he was going, only that he was leaving Kilindi and his brothers behind him. Was he more furious with them for falling prey to this weakness, or with himself for being unable to make them understand the realities of the situation? 

It had been only a week with Fett. He should not mean anything to any of them. Kilindi claimed to be his friend, his brothers were kin, they were supposed to follow _him_ … 

Maul’s nose caught a faint scent that did not belong. He stopped, tilted his head back and inhaled. Metal polish and human sweat. There was not supposed to be anyone out here, much less anyone armed or wearing armour. A local come to investigate their arrival? A Death Watch scout? Either way, if they meant them harm, Maul would kill them. 

He was in the mood to kill _something_ right now. 

The scent was carried on the wind, easy to follow. The human must not know how keen a zabrak’s nose was - or he was not aware that Maul was out here. Maul crouched low enough to be hidden by the long wild grass and headed towards the source of the smell. 

There was a man also hiding in the grass. He was in full _beskar’gam_ , though the paint was chipped and worn and on the pauldron where an insignia might once have lain it had been scarred over intentionally. A deserter? Someone who had forsaken his past? The man had a long rifle in his hands, braced with an elbow on one knee. He was peering through the scope towards the homestead - merely observing, or preparing to fire? 

Maul bared his teeth and drew a pair of vibroknives from his belt. He had more in various places on his person, for throwing and in case he was disarmed. Now he broke into a run to close the distance, trusting to his own speed over the reflexes of the stranger. The man began to turn towards him, swinging the rifle round, but Maul was already there. He leapt and kicked the barrel of the rifle away from him, using the impact to change direction and stab forwards at the gap between the pauldron and chestplate. The Mandalorian rolled backwards just enough so the vibroknife shuddered off beskar - or beskar-durasteel blend judging by the fact that it scored a line in the metal - dropped the rifle and grabbed for Maul’s arms. 

Maul planted his other foot in the man’s abdomen and somersaulted backwards, landing neatly on his feet with both blades pointed towards the enemy. The stranger rose fluidly from kneeling to a crouch, hands raised ready to meet another attack. The blank slit of his helmet was focused on Maul. 

Before Maul could attack again the man spoke. It was the Concordian dialect, spoken both here and on one of Mandalor’s moons, and it took him a moment to process his words. [ _You fight well kid. Who trained you?_ ]

It would be best to keep up the facade of ignorance, to act in a way that made sense for what they were pretending to be - simple children Fett found on his travels. “I do not understand you,” he said in Basic. “Who are you? Why are you spying on our house?”

“ _Your_ house?” the man replied, in the same language. “This place already has an owner. You’re just squatting.”

There was something defensive and almost protective in his tone. Interesting. “It was in a poor state for a house that anyone owns. Why does it matter to you? It isn’t yours, is it?”

Maul felt the man’s tense anger in the Force. Yes, this mattered deeply to him. “That house belongs to my leader,” the man said, gesturing in the direction of the homestead. “When he returns…”

It was as Maul had suspected. “You followed Jango Fett,” he said. 

That gave him pause. “How do you know that name?”

“Because he _has_ returned,” Maul told him. “He’s the one that brought us here.”

For a moment the Mandalorian swayed on his feet like a puppet with its strings cut. “You… you’re lying to me _adiik_.”

“I’m not. He is merely away in town at the moment. You could wait here for him to return.” Maul was not worried about inviting the stranger into their midst. He was certain he could beat the man in a fight, and the emotions he was sensing felt genuine. It was difficult for those who were not Force-sensitive to conceal such things. He was more cautious about what his presence might mean long-term. His argument with Kilindi and his brothers was still fresh in his mind. If there was one survivor amongst the _Haat Mando’ade,_ perhaps there could be more. Enough to make Fett a genuine prospect as an ally. 

Maul was still confident that time would prove him right, but it would be foolish not to use this stranger to their advantage in the short-term. A soldier on their side was not something to be set aside lightly - and what was the other option? Kill him now and leave his body to rot in the fields? Maul could not take the time to dig a grave. Fett could find out, and his rage would ruin their sanctuary here. 

“Well then?” he demanded.

“Where did Jango pick you four up?” the man asked, still mostly in shock. “Where has he been all these months?”

“Ask him yourself,” Maul said, beginning to walk in the direction of the homestead. After a moment, the Mandalorian followed. “What is your name, if you are going to be staying?”

“Silas,” the man replied. “It’s Silas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maul is so damn prickly - all these issues about loyalty and control. Maybe he'll learn to trust eventually...


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jango goes on a shopping trip while Maul learns something new about Mandalorian history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a Notes:
> 
> Kyr'tsad - Death Watch  
> Dha'kad - Darksaber  
> Hut'uun - coward  
> Haat Mando'ade - True Mandalorians  
> Haat'ade - shortened version of the above  
> Jetiise - Jedi (plural)  
> Buy'ce - helmet (lit. bucket)  
> Adiik - kid, child  
> Adiikla - plural of the above (from a mando language server, if it's a weird conjugation just pretend its that Concordian dialect)  
> Manda - a mandalorian's soul/spirit, or their afterlife, depending on context  
> Ka'ra - the stars/the spirits of dead Mandalorian leaders residing in the stars guiding living Mandalorians.

Savage watched his younger brother stomp away from them with a heavy, uneasy heart. He did not understand why Maul was so hesitant to offer trust. He was but a child. Had he been betrayed so often in his mere twelve years that he could no longer believe in promises? It seemed hard to believe it could be so, yet there could be no other reason for him to be so wary, so prickly. It had to be the doing of his Sith teacher. Savage had no idea who that man was, but he was deeply, desperately angry at them. Maul should be like Feral, as happy and content as Savage could make him, not brooding and raw and quick to anger. In a brief moment he mourned all that had been stolen from them, all the lost opportunities to be the big brother Maul deserved. 

He could do that now. Savage  _ wanted  _ to do that now, only it seemed Maul didn’t want anyone to try and help him or protect him - not unless it was on his own terms. He didn’t want Jango’s help, even though it was freely offered. It seemed callous and cruel to say that they should throw their lot in with Jango’s enemies simply because those enemies were stronger and more numerous. Was that coldness in Maul another lesson from the Sith? Was it really that Jango's kindness meant nothing to him, or simply that he could not trust it? 

Maul wanted him and Savage and Feral to be a family, didn't he? Savage hoped that was his reason for rescuing them from Dathomir, and not that he saw them too as no more than useful allies. Savage shouldn't have suggested that Jango could be a part of their family. He hadn't really meant it, hadn't actually thought of it as a possibility himself before, and it had only made his brother more angry. In truth Savage wasn't looking for someone to take the place of the father he barely remembered. None of the Nightbrothers put much stock in blood parents. Siblings were what was important, as well as respecting the village Elders. Men who were taken by the Nightsisters - their  _ breeding stock _ \- did not often come back. They were kept until there was no further use for them. Only their children were returned, rejected by all those Nightsisters wishing to bear daughters with strong, proven blood, yet who had been disappointed to find a boy growing in their wombs instead. 

Fathers died. Sons were raised together by the village. 

Savage did not know how the Mandalorians raised their children, but Maul seemed to think that their younglings were important to them. Savage found it hard to imagine being brought up by one person alone. Surely they would not have enough time - what about when they were tired, or busy with work? Perhaps it was easier when they had only one child to care for each. 

Thinking about Jango in this way felt odd. Savage assumed that humans and zabrak aged similarly, and if so Jango was still young, somewhere in his early twenties. Too old to be a sibling, a child safe because of their age, not old enough to be an Elder, to have fallen short of the Nightsisters’ requirements for strength and skill. Yes, old enough to be a father, but that was a poisoned cup, a poor title. It meant only that he was old enough to catch a Nightsister's attention and play the role of their stud. 

"He'll be okay," Kilindi said, breaking Savage from his dour thoughts. She was addressing Feral, patting his shoulder with one hand. "There's nothing out there that can hurt him."

"He was already hurting," Feral said, his distress plain. "I felt it. In here." He pressed his palm against his chest. 

Feral felt it? He must mean the Force, the power of the witches - and of the Sith. 

This whole argument had started because Savage questioned why his brother wanted to hide their training in this magic from Jango. Now he wondered if it would have been better to go along with it, to simply accept Maul’s plan. However it was necessary to know what Maul intended for their future. Young he might be, but he had a drive and a determination that was impressive. Savage had thought sometimes of escaping Dathomir with Feral but he knew it had only ever been an idle fantasy. Maul had dared to escape from the Sith, a far more daunting prospect. 

"How long have you known Maul, Kilindi?" Feral asked. "You never said."

The nautolan shrugged. "I'm not sure if he would want me to tell you."

"But why wouldn't he want us to know about him?" Feral said, plaintive. "He's our brother."

"He is," Savage agreed, "but Feral, you saw how hard it is for him to trust. He would only feel safe telling us those things himself.”

“Exactly,” Kilindi said, nodding. “It isn’t that he doesn’t care about you Feral… he just doesn’t know how to show that. I… I think before me he hadn’t ever had a friend before.” She shut her mouth quickly, a faint flush of embarrassment across her cheeks. “But perhaps I shouldn’t have even said that much,” she added quietly. 

“We will simply have to give him time, Feral,” Savage said. “And there must be a way to convince him that we can make a good, safe life for ourselves here.”

Kilindi bit her lip. “He doesn’t want a good, safe life,” she said. “Or he doesn’t think that’s possible for us. With this Sith person out there, he’s probably right. It’s not the sort of life that Mandalorians are known for either, and we already know that Jango wants to get revenge on Death Watch.”

She was right. Jango had unfinished business. He would not want to stay and work this farm forever, not with that hanging over him. “Is that part of Maul’s hesitation?” he asked. “Does he believe Jango will abandon us to seek his revenge?”

“I thought he wanted to  _ help  _ Jango kill the ones who hurt him, up until he started talking about joining Death Watch,” Kilindi said, slightly plaintive. 

Savage shook his head. There was something about this whole situation that they were missing. “I do not understand why Death Watch would help us with anything,” he said. “I know little about them, or these Mandalorian factions at all. Only what little Jango has said.”

“Before I met Maul,” Kilindi said, picking her words carefully, “I was trained briefly by a Mandalorian. His name was Meltch Krakko and I think maybe he was Death Watch. He left to join their civil war.”

Feral bit his lip. “If there’s a war on, then is it really safe here?”

“Jango seems to think so,” Savage replied. “We have seen no signs of fighting or violence these past few days.”

“We’re safe for now,” Kilindi said, “but I can’t help but feel like we’re going to get caught up in the civil war eventually. I suppose it depends what Jango wants to do, and Maul as well.”

“We must ask Jango what his plans are,” Savage decided. “Otherwise we can only speculate with empty words.”

“Not just Jango,” Kilindi said. “We need to get straight what all of us want. What our goals are for the future. Then we can work out if we  _ can  _ all get what we want, or if things just can’t work out, the way Maul seems to believe.”

“Is Maul going to want to tell us that?” Feral asked. “What if he still won’t  _ talk _ to us?”

Savage sighed. “It does not help that we do not know how much time we have,” he said. “Maul is afraid of his Sith teacher finding him before he is strong enough to defeat him, yes? But if that does not happen for months or even years… Surely it will take years to be ready in any case? Maul cannot fight this man - he is a child!”

“We  _ can _ fight,” Kilindi said. “We were trained to fight, even against adults. But… there is the Force too.”

“Then the Death Watch are, what? To shield us from the Sith until we are stronger in the Force?” Savage clenched his fist shut in frustration. He doubted they would offer any form of protection without a price, and to stand against a Sith that price would be high indeed. How did Maul plan to pay it?

“There’s no point guessing,” Kilindi said. “It’s pretty hard to know what Maul is thinking sometimes. I’m sure he’ll be back in a little while though. We should find something to do until then, so we aren’t just worrying.”

“You are wise for your age,” Savage said. It was meant to be a compliment - he wasn’t entirely sure he’d made it come out that way. 

Kilindi shrugged. “I learned fast, when I was young,” she replied. “Maybe you could show me the warrior training of your village? I’m sure that Maul wants the two of you to be trained to fight like we are.”

Savage nodded. He suspected as much - and he was curious what training Kilindi and his brother shared as well. “Feral has not started learning yet,” he said, “but I am happy to show you.”

\----

After Jango had brought the  _ Promised Revenge _ in to land on the outskirts of the small settlement of Arakura he sat for some time thinking things over in his head. A few days hadn’t been enough to take away the raw pain of returning home, of living in the place where his parents had died. The buildings were too familiar even in this state of disrepair; he would turn a corner and expect to see his mother working on one of the pieces of farm equipment that had broken down yet again, or his father coming in from the fields. He felt their absence more keenly than he had been in a decade. 

He was sure it was because he had lost so much else in the past few years. First Jaster on Korda 6, and then Arla along with the rest of the  _ Haat’ade  _ on Galidraan. Their love and support as well as the satisfaction of his revenge against the man who killed his parents had been enough to ease the sharp edge of loss before. Then on Galidraan came blood and death and fury, fighting for his life in the mud against the bright flickering blades of the deadly  _ jetiise _ , whose cold eyes cared nothing for Jango or anyone he loved. In the aftermath, lying surrounded by the corpses of those he’d managed to kill, his blood seeping into the dirt and floating in and out of consciousness, his heart had been an empty void. Death had been nothing to fear. He expected to rejoin his people in the  _ manda _ , though he had not looked for the honour of rising to the ranks of the  _ ka’ra  _ amongst the dead like his second  _ buir _ . He had failed his people too greatly for that.

Instead the governor’s men descended like vultures, stripped him like scavengers, hauled him off to be sold as a slave like the  _ hut’uun _ they were. 

Jango tapped his fingers against the control stick of the freighter. He’d sat here before, when Colton couldn’t be bothered to fly. This ship had been another prison, the tight confines of its walls somehow a better taste of freedom than the crushing despair that seemed to drip from every corner of the  _ Good Trip _ . It was a freedom to go other places, even if he only saw the inside of docking bays, hangars, and - at least he had that - the stars. 

Those  _ adiikla _ Maul and Kilindi had given him a greater gift than he ever thought to hope for. Hope had been lost for a long time. Hope died on Galidraan. 

_ Ossik _ , those kids. Jango knew from the moment he saw them there was nothing pleasant about where they’d come from. Children trying to survive alone in the galaxy were always running from something tragic, whether that was whatever fate had happened to their parents, or the kind of upbringing Jango would rather not think about. Kilindi was more open about her past than Maul. She felt some kinship with Jango, given his enslavement. 

The fact that Maul was so close-lipped, along with the fact that he acted a lot older than the twelve standard he looked, suggested that he’d gone through something worse than what Kilindi had suffered through. There was no such thing as “good” slavery - that was a lie  _ hut’uuun _ told themselves to make themselves feel better - but a house slave might get off easier than… whatever Maul was. 

That wasn’t a guarantee. On the  _ Good Trip _ the slaves spoke when they could, told stories of their pasts. Every slave was constantly at the mercy of their Masters’ worst impulses - their violence, their sadism, their sexual appetites… 

As it had many times over the past eighteen months, a vast, aching, helpless rage rose up in Jango’s heart. Slavery was a problem too big for one person to solve but that didn’t stop him wanting to scream and fight and tear the whole thing down. Even if all he could do was protect these  _ adiikla _ , that was at least something. 

Jango  _ thought _ Maul’s past had something to do with the Force. Becoming a slave himself had introduced him to a criminal underworld he’d known about before, but not in the depth and detail he did now. Force-sensitive slaves were a prize that carried an expensive price-tag. Maul denied that he’d been trained by a  _ jetii  _ and claimed to hate them even. That might be because they had failed to find him, to save him from the slavers. 

It was only a guess. Almost certainly not the whole story. 

What was he going to do with them? With all four of them, Maul’s brothers included? Protect them, obviously, but giving them a place to sleep and something to do for a few days was only the beginning of that. They needed a steady source of food, ongoing safety, an education… and they needed their emotional needs to be met. Jango was surely kidding himself if he thought he could do all that. His whole life for the past eighteen-odd months had been going through the motions of living. Even now he was free he could barely think about what he was doing right now much less plan for the future. 

He was no fit parent.  _ Adiikla  _ from their sort of background would need more than he knew how to give. Maul didn’t trust him at all, and although Kilindi did, it was only to an extent. If he did something wrong that trust would break like spun glass, and there would be no fixing it again. Only there wasn’t anyone else, and he couldn’t leave them alone to fend for themselves. 

Jango sighed from deep in his chest, and forced himself to actually get up and get to work. There was a lot to do - panes of glass and plaster-mix to buy, rumours to collect, and he needed to visit the clinic here and find out if they would let him take a set of vaccinations out to the farm himself or if they would insist on him bringing the kids in to get their shots. He expected the answer was going to be the latter, but Maul wouldn’t be happy about it. He was prickly enough around just Jango, much less the whole populace of the village. That wasn’t even getting into if he had any bad history with medics. 

That was a conversation to prepare for on the way back home. One of a few Jango would need to have with the  _ adiikla _ . Both Maul and Kilindi spoke of being trained in their past when they were claiming they could take care of themselves. Jango thought they were probably overestimating their abilities as children often did, but one thing they certainly  _ could  _ do was be stealthy. He needed them to show him what they were actually capable of, and then along with the two boys from Dathomir he could come up with a training programme for them. 

Jango paused at the exit hatch. If he was thinking about training the  _ adiikla _ , then how much was he willing to commit to that? Was he going to teach them the Resol’nare too? Was he intending to bring them up like  _ Mando’ade? _ Did he have any right to do so, after his failure at Galidraan? 

He had no answer to these questions. It had been little more than a week since Maul and Kilindi freed him and he hadn’t found his feet yet or any sense of a stable place to stand. There would be time to figure all this out. To get his  _ buy’ce  _ on straight. 

Jango headed out, into a village where his first language of Mando’a made up the background murmur of conversation, comforting yet at the same time feeling almost alien after going so long without it. He had people to talk to. 

\----

Savage did not get much of a chance to demonstrate any of his skills to Kilindi, because not long after he began to work through one of the standard katas he had been taught Feral jumped up from the crate he was using as a seat and pointed out at the fields. 

“Maul is coming back,” he shouted. “He’s got someone with him.”

Savage and Kilindi both turned to look. Maul was indeed walking along the path between the fields with a Mandalorian at his side - or so Savage assumed. Jango had mentioned their warriors usually wore armour, but this was the first time he was seeing it. The painted metal plates covered most of the stranger’s body, with a grey jumpsuit as protection beneath. The colour was predominantly green, with yellow at his shoulders, red at his wrists, and a blue rim around the t-shaped visor of his helmet. Was there some significance to the colours? 

Maul was holding a blaster rifle that was too big for him, angled to cover the warrior. Not precisely a friend then. Kilindi moved quickly to the house and picked up a blaster of her own, one of the ones they had purchased on Bandomeer. Of course all of them had vibroknives on them as was simply wise, but a ranged weapon could be handy if this warrior proved to be a problem. 

As the pair neared the homestead the stranger’s helmet started to turn, sweeping the courtyard between the farm buildings as though he were looking for something. 

“He will not return for some time,” Maul said, with a sharp edge to his tone. “As I told you.”

“Brother, who is this?” Savage asked, his hand hovering over the hilt of his knife.

“He calls himself Silas,” Maul replied. “He claims he was once a follower of Jango Fett.”

“One of his  _ Haat Mando’ade _ ?” Savage asked, surprised. “He told us they were all dead.”

His words seemed to shock the man out of whatever stupor had taken him. “Almost all of us,” he said. “I was badly injured, but the  _ jetiise _ didn’t manage to kill me. I… I looked for him, afterwards.” He started to speak faster, an urgency there that had him almost tripping over his own tongue. “What happened to him? I couldn’t find him - there was no sign, no body, so I hoped that he was still alive but…”

“Calm yourself,” Maul said irritably. “He will return tonight from town. You may ask him all your questions yourself then.”

The man’s chest rose and fell in a deep shuddering breath. He managed to relax. “You kids must know something though. How long have you been with Jango?”

“If Fett wants you to know he will be free to tell you himself,” Maul said. “Sit down.” He gestured to one of the crates near the wall with an impatient stab of the blaster rifle. Some part of Savage was glad that Maul’s sense of intense privacy extended to others, rather than just himself. It was considerate of him. 

The Mandalorian, Silas, sat down as Maul instructed, his hands closing in a nervous grip over the armour plating his thighs. He rubbed his palms briefly up and down. “Can I ask your names?” he said. 

Savage looked to Maul. His brother shrugged, a casual movement of one shoulder. There was still tension in his small frame, leashed potential, and his finger hovered near the rifle’s trigger. 

“I am Savage,” Savage said. “You’ve met one of my brothers. Feral is the younger one.”

“Kilindi,” Kilindi said. “How did you know there was anyone out here?”

“The ship.” Silas gestured upwards. “I’ve been living… well. Somewhere near here. With friends. People who know who I used to be. When somebody saw a ship heading towards the old Fett farm the word got round to me eventually.”

Savage did not miss the cautious way he talked around giving any specific details. It was obvious he did not entirely believe that Jango Fett was still alive, or that they were here with his blessing. He was still willing to brave their potential trap because he hoped that it was true, but he was prepared to be betrayed. 

“We expected the news to spread eventually,” Maul said. “Once Fett has reassured you, you can tell your friends that there is no reason for concern in our presence here.”

“If you won’t tell me about Jango that’s fine,” Silas said. “But… I’m just surprised to find he’s picked up four children somewhere along the way. There must be an interesting story behind that.”

“Not one we are willing to tell you yet,” Maul said, before anyone else could speak. “You managed to survive the Jedi attack. Are you sure there were no others?”

Silas shook his head. “I dragged myself all over that muddy field,” he said, his voice shaking faintly. “I found the bodies of everyone except Jango. I wasn’t sure if he escaped or if they took him prisoner. There are still some amongst the clans who are loyal to the true Mand’alor…”

“Mand’alor,” Maul said, cutting in over Silas sharply. “You mean Fett?”

“Yes,” Silas said slowly. “I guess I’m not surprised that Jango didn’t mention that, but… you know what that title means?” 

“ _ I _ do not,” Savage said. He glanced at Kilindi but she shook her head. Wherever Maul learned that, it had not been the place the two of them had trained. 

“The leader of the Mandalorian people,” Maul said. “I thought it required one to wield the Darksaber.”

“ _ Kyr’tsad _ believe that, yes,” Silas said. His helmet tilted - Savage imagined he was giving Maul a searching look from beneath the visor. “Where did you learn about Mandalorians,  _ adiik _ ?” 

“If Death Watch believe something so different, how can you truly say your leader is the real Mand’alor?” Maul said, not answering the question. “Do they have a Mand’alor of their own?”

“You really want a lesson in Mandalorian political history at a time like this?” 

Maul nodded, taking one hand off the rifle to spread it wide in a gesture that said ‘why not’? 

“Well…” Silas said slowly. “I suppose if you want to argue the point there hasn’t been one single Mand’alor for all the Clans to rally behind since the fall of the Empire. In the aftermath of what the Republic and the  _ jetiise  _ did, the New Mandalorian faction managed to win most of the support of the Clans in what was left of Mandalorian territory. Back then they weren’t as insular and pacifist as they’ve become, but they resisted the idea of taking the title of Mand’alor because of what happened to the last Mand’alor of the Empire.”

“And what was that?” Savage asked. 

“They were executed,” Silas replied. “By the  _ jetiise _ .”

Maul snarled. “I should not be surprised. The Jedi frequently think themselves entitled to interfere with others, excusing themselves with their supposed moral code.”

“It was a war,” the Mandalorian said. “The  _ jetiise  _ were fighting on the side of the Republic. That’s kind of what happens to the leader of the losing side.”

“You defend them,” Maul said, his eyes narrowed and furious. “They slaughtered your people.”

Silas’s hands tightened into fists. “I hate the  _ jetiise  _ who attacked us more than enough,” he said, voice tight and barely controlled.. “But their actions have nothing to do with those of the  _ jetiise  _ from centuries ago. Otherwise the  _ Haat’ade _ are no better than  _ our  _ marauding, empire-building ancestors.”

“Your ‘empire-building ancestors’ were strong,” Maul said. “I would not be so ashamed of them.”

“Hmmm.” Silas gave Maul another long look. “You have a lot of opinions for someone who isn’t Mandalorian themselves.”

“I have strong opinions about many things in this galaxy,” Maul replied. 

“Well,” Silas said. “That was over seven centuries ago. For the first few centuries the New Mandalorians were basically in charge. Then they stopped listening to the will of the Clans, started to say that our heritage, our culture, even the tenets of the Resol’nare itself were wrong. Misguided. Evil, even. They blamed those things for what the Republic did to us. Many of the clans ended up practising the traditional ways in private.

“Given that, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the clans ended up getting together and electing a Mand’alor again. The New Mandalorians knew about it, but there wasn’t much they could do without a fight - and their own code prevented that. Those faithful to the old ways forged their own path, giving lip service to the New Mandalorians only. And then, eventually, we had this philosophical split between  _ Kyr’tsad  _ and  _ Haat Mando’ade _ , between Jaster Mereel and Tor Viszla.”

“And which of them had been chosen as Mand’alor by the Clans?” Maul asked. 

“Jaster,” Silas said, with definite pride. “Tor wasn’t happy about it - none of House Vizsla was. There had been a lot of Vizsla Mand’alors over the past few centuries. That’s meant to be how the whole link with the  _ dha’kad  _ came about. The heads of Clan Vizsla have wielded the  _ dha'kad  _ since retrieving it from the Jedi Temple almost a millenia ago. 

“Anyway, Tor challenged Jaster to duel for the title of Mand’alor, and he lost. The rite of combat is an old one, just not one that comes up that often. The appointed Mand’alor doesn’t even have to accept if the challenger isn’t favoured by the clans as well, though it’s up to their judgement of course. No-one can dispute the result of the duel though. After Jaster defeated him Tor tried to give him the  _ dha'kad _ , but Jaster thought it should stay with House Vizsla.”

Silas looked down. When he spoke again it was quieter, contemplative. “Perhaps that was part of the problem. Perhaps Tor thought Jaster was disrespecting him, disrespecting his own ideas about how the position of Mand’alor should work. Or maybe he’s just an evil  _ hut’uun _ who would have fought us no matter what - that seems more likely to me after everything he’s done since. Either way,  _ kyr’tsad _ have their Vizsla Mand’alor, and we had Jaster and then Jango.”

“That is… very interesting,” Maul said. Savage agreed, but he suspected that everything they’d heard meant more to his brother than it did to him. 

“So,” Feral asked - he had been listening to all of this with the intensity of the young. “If Jango fought the Death Watch Mand’alor now, and took the  _ dha… dha'kad _ … then maybe they would stop fighting?”

“Maybe,” Silas said. “If Tor even agreed to a duel.”

“Would it not be dishonourable to refuse?” Savage asked. 

“You can never tell which days  _ kyr’tsad  _ will decide they’re being honourable,” Silas said, with a great deal of bitterness. 

“Now that you have found Fett - your Mand’alor - what are your intentions?” Maul asked. 

Silas laughed. “I didn’t come here today expecting to learn that Jango is still alive. I don’t know. I haven’t even had time to think.”

“But you intend to help him, with whatever he might wish to do?” 

“Of course,” the Mandalorian replied. 

“Jango won’t be back for a while,” Kilindi said. “We’re expecting him around dinnertime. Do you want something to drink in the meantime? Caff perhaps?”

“Caff… would be nice. Thanks.”

Kilindi nodded, and went to make it for him. Maul leaned with false casualness against the wall of the house, still keeping an eye on Silas. Savage hoped he didn’t intend to stay there on watch all afternoon. He got no sense that this man wished them harm.

Savage thought that this man’s arrival was a good omen for them all. It was clear he cared a great deal about Jango, and it was also clear that Jango had been hurt deeply by the deaths of his people. Perhaps finding that one of them at least had survived would lift some of that weight from his heart and give him cheer. Silas might also be able to help Jango figure out what he wanted to do now. He might have some knowledge - or be able to find some - that would help with the revenge that they were all sure Jango wanted. 

It was harder to say if Maul thought this was a good thing. He had been looking for something with his questions that Savage did not understand. His information about Mandalorian culture and history was more than any of the rest of them possessed, but it appeared to be fragmentary and the gaps in it had also meant something to Silas. Savage did not know the significance of that either. 

He sighed. These were not questions he wanted to explore in front of his brother, who would not be pleased with the probing.

Kilindi emerged with a mug of steaming caff and brought it over to Silas. The man reached up to slide his helmet off with the faint hiss of a depressurising seal and gave her a smile, taking it and wrapping his hands around it. He had brown hair and eyes, with skin much paler than Jango’s. He seemed content to sit on that crate and enjoy his caff without pressing any of them to answer the questions he surely had. 

“Perhaps we can return to our former business,” Savage suggested to Kilindi. 

“What business was that?” Maul asked with an edge of suspicion. 

“I was going to show Kilindi how the Nightbrothers trained,” he replied. Maul considered that for a moment. 

“Not in front of our prisoner,” he said. 

“Is that what I am?” Silas asked, half amused and half genuinely wary. 

“Until Fett says otherwise.”

Savage shrugged. It appeared Maul really  _ did _ plan to stand guard all that time. There was space on the other side of the barn where he could show Kilindi the warrior forms. “Are you staying here or coming with us?” he asked Feral. 

“Staying here,” Feral replied immediately. “I want to hear some Mandalorian stories.”

“Very well.” Savage left them to it.


End file.
